NARRATIVE 



I. 

OF THE \ 

/ 

'1 



SUFFERINGS OF LEWIS CLARKE, 






DURING A 



CAPTIVITY 

OF MORE THAN TWExNTY-riYE YEARS, 



AMONG THE 



ALGERINES OF KENTUCKY, 



ONE OF THE SO CALLED 



CHRISTIAN STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



DICTATED BY HIMSELF. 



BOSTON: 

DAVID H. ELA, PRINTER, 
At the Stone Steps, 37 Corn hill 

1845. 



en 



. '* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, 

BY LEWIS CLARKE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the DiBtrict Court of the District of Massachusi'ttM 



O 



PREFACE. 



I FIRST became acquainted with Lewis Clarke in December, 
1842. I well remember the deep impression made upon my 
mind on hearing his Narrative from his own lips. It gave me a 
new and more vivid impression of the wrongs of Slavery than I 
had ever before felt. Evidently a person of good native talents 
and of deep sensibilities, such a mind had been under the dark 
cloud of slavery for more than twenty-five years. Letters, read- 
ing, all the modes of thought awakened by them, had been utterly 
hid from his eyes ; and yet his mind had evidently been active, 
and trains of thought were flowing through it, which he was ut- 
terly unable to express. I well remember too the wave on wave 
of deep feeling excited in an audience of more than a thousand 
persons, at Hallowell, Me., as they listened to his story and look- 
ed upon his energetic and manly countenance, and wondered if 
the dark cloud of slavery could cover up — hide from the world, 
and degrade to the condition of brutes, such immortal minds. 
His story, there and wherever since told, has aroused the most 
utter abhorrence of the Slave System. 
1* 



/3 



\ 



VI PREFACE. 

For the two last years, I have had the most ample opportunity 
of becoming acquainted with Mr. Clarke. He has made this 
place his home, when not engaged in giving to public audiences 
the story of his suflTerings, and the suiierings of his fellow slaves. 
Soon after he came to Ohio, by the faithful instruction of pious 
friends, he was led, as he believes, to see himself a sinner before 
God, and to seek pardon and forgiveness through the precious 
blood of the Lamb. He has ever manifested an ardent thirst for 
religious, as well as for other kinds of knowledge. In the opin- 
ion of all those best acquainted with him, he has maintained the 
character of a sincere Christian. That he is what he professes 
to be, — a slave escaped from the grasp of avarice and power, — 
there is not the least shadow of doubt. His narrative bears the 
most conclusive internal evidence of its truth. Persons of dis- 
criminating minds have heard it repeatedly, under a great variety 
of circumstances, and the story, in all substantial respects, has 
been always the same. He has been repeatedly recognized in 
the Free States by persons who knew him in Kentucky, when a 
slave. During the summer of 1844, Cassius M. Clay visited 
Boston, and on seeing Milton Clarke, recognized him as one of 
the Clarke family, well known to him in Kentucky. Indeed, 
nothing can be more surely established than the fact that Lewis 
and Milton Clarke are no impostors. For three years they have 
been engaged in telling their story in seven or eight different 
Slates, and no one has appeared to make an attempt to contra- 
dict them. The capture of Milton in Ohio, by the kidnappers, 
as a slave, makes assurance doubly strong. Wherever they 
have told their story, large audiences have collected, and every- 



PREFACE. Vil 

where they have been listened to with great interest and satis- 
faction. 

Cyrus is fully equal to either of the brothers in sprightliness of 
mind — is withal a great wit, and would make an admirable lec- 
turer, but for an unfortunate impediment in his speech. They 
all feel deeply the wrongs they have suffered, and are by no 
means forgetful of their brethren in bonds. When Lewis fii-st 
came to this place, he was frequently noticed in silent and deep 
meditation. On beina; asked what he was thinking of, he would 
reply, " O, of the poor slaves ! Here I am free, and they suffer- 
ing so much.'''' Bitter tears are often seen coursing down his 
manly cheeks, as he recurs to the scenes of his early suffering. 
Many persons, who have heard him lecture, have expressed a 
strong desire that liis story might he recorded in a connected 
form. He has therefore concluded to have it printed. He was 
anxious to add facts from other witnesses, and some appeals 
from other hearts, if by any means he might awaken more hearts 
to feel for his downtrodden brethren. Nothing seems to grieve 
him to the heart like finding a minister of the Gospel, or a pro- 
fessed Christian, indifferent to the condition of the slave. As to 
doing much for the instruction of the minds of the slaves, or for 
the salvation of their souls, till they are emancipated, restored 
to the rights of men, in his opinion it is utterly impossible. 

When the master, or his representative, the man who justifies 
slaveholding, comes with the whip in one hand and the Bible in 
the other, the slave says, at least in liis heart, lay down one or 
the other. Either make the tree good and the fruit good, or 
else both corrupt together. Slaves do not believe that the re- 



VllI PREFACE. 

LiGiON which is from God, bears whips and chains. They ask 
emphatically concerning their Father in Heaven, 

" Has He bid you buy and sell us, 
Speaking from his throne, the sky." 

For the facts contained in the following Narrative, Mr. Clarke 
is of course alone responsible. Yet having had the most ample 
opportunities for testing his accuracy, I do not hesitate to say, 
that I have not a shadow of doubt, but in all material points every 
word is true. Much of it is in his own language, and all of it 
according to his own dictation. 

J. C. LOVEJOY. 

Camhridgeport^ April, 1845. 



i\ 



NARRATIVE OF LEWIS CLARKE. 



I WAS born in March, as near as I can ascertain, in 
the year 1815, in Madison County, Kentucky, about seven 
miles froni Richmond, upon the plantation of my grand- 
father, Samuel Campbell. He was considered a very re- 
spectable man among his fellow robbers — the slaveholders. 
It did not render him less honorable in their eyes, that he 
took to his bed Mary, his slave, perhaps half white, by 
whom he had one daughter, — Letitia Campbell. This 
was before his marriage. 

My Father was from "beyond the flood" — from Scot- 
land, and by trade a w^eaver. He had been married in 
his own country, and lost his wife, who left to him, as I 
have been told, two sons. He came to this country in 
time to be in the earliest scenes of the American Revolu- 
tion. He was at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and continued 
in the army to the close of the war. About the year 
1800, or before, he came to Kentucky, and married Miss 
Letitia Campbell, then held as a slave by her dear and af- 
fectionate father. My father died, as near as I can recol- 
lect, when I was about ten or twelve years of age. He 
had received a wound in the war which made him lame as 



10 NARRATIVE OF 

long as he lived. I have often heard him tell of Scotland, 
sing the merry songs of his native land, and long to see its 
hills once more. 

Mr. Campbell promised my father that his daughter 
Letitia should be made free in his will. It was with this 
promise that he married her. And I have no doubt that Mr. 
Campbell was as good as his word, and that by his luill, 
my mother and her nine children were made free. But ten 
persons in one family, each worth three hundred dollars, 
are not easily set free among those accustomed to live by 
continued robbery. We did not, therefore, by an instru- 
ment from the hand of the dead, escape the avaricious 
ffrab of the slaveholder. It is the common belief that the 
will was destroyed by the heirs of Mr. Campbell. 

The night in which I was born, I have been told, was 
dark and terrible, black as the night for which Job prayed, 
when he besought the clouds to pitch their tent round 
about the place of his birth ; and my life of slavery was 
but too exactly prefigured by the stormy elements that 
hovered over the first hour of my being. It was with 
great difficulty that any one could be urged out for a ne- 
cessary attendant for my mother. At length one of the 
sons of Mr. Campbell, William, by the promise from his 
mother of the child that should be born, was induced to 
make an eflbrt to obtain the necessary assistance. By 
going five or six miles he obtained a female professor of 
the couch. 

William Campbell, by virtue of this title, always 
claimed me as his property. And well would it have 
been for me, if this claim had been regarded. At the age 
of six or seven years I fell into the hands of his sister, 
Mrs. Betsey Banton, whose character will be best known 



LEWIS CLARKE. 11 

when I have told the horrid wrongs which she heaped 
upon me for ten years. If there are any she spirits that 
come up from hell, and take possession of one part of 
mankind, I am sure she is one of that sort. I was con- 
signed to her under the following circumstances : When 
she was married, there was given her, as part of her 
dower, as is common among the Algerines of Kentucky, 
a girl by the name of Ruth, about fourteen or fifteen 
years old. In a short time Ruth was dejected and injured, 
by beating and abuse of different kinds, so that she was 
sold for a half-fool to the more tender mercies of the sugar 
planter in Louisiana. The amiable Mrs. Betsey obtained 
then, on loan from her parents, another slave named 
Phillis. In six months she had suffered so severely under 
the hand of this monster woman, that she made an at- 
tempt to kill herself, and was taken home by the parents of 
Mrs. Banton. This produced a regular slave-holding family 
brawl — a regular war of/owr years, between the mild 
and peaceable Mrs. B. and her own parents. These wars 
are very common among the Algerines in Kentucky ; in- 
deed, slave-holders have not arrived at that degree of civi- 
lization that enables them to live in tolerable peace, though 
united by the nearest family ties. In them is fulfilled 
what I have heard read in the Bible: The father is 
against the son, and the daughter-in-law against the 
mother-in-law, and their foes are of their own household. 
Some of the slaveholders may have a wide house ; but 
one of the cat-handed, snake-eyed, brawling women, 
which slavery produces, can fill it from cellar to garret. I 
have heard every place I could get into any way, ring with 
their screech-owl voices. Of all the animals on the face 
of this earth, I am most afraid of a real n)ad, passionate, 



12 NARRATIVE OF 

raving, slaveholding woman. Some body told me once, 
that Edmund Burke declared, that the natives of India 
fled to the jungles, among tigers and lions, to escape the 
more barbarous cruelty of Warren Hastings. I am sure I 
would sooner lie down to sleep by the side of tigers, than 
near a raging-mad slave woman. But I must go back to 
sweet Mrs. Banton. I have been describing her in the 
abstract ; — I will give a full-grown portrait of her, right 
away. For four years after the trouble about Phillis, she 
never came near her father's house. At the end of this 
period another of the amiable sisters was to be married, 
and sister Betsey could not repress the tide of curiosity, 
urging her to be present at the nuptial ceremonies. Be- 
side, she had another motive. Either shrewdly suspecting 
that she might deserve less than any member of the fam- 
ily, or that some ungrounded partiality would be mani- 
fested toward her sister, she determined at all hazards to be 
present, and see that the scales which weighed out the 
children of the plantation should be held with even hand. 
The wedding day was appointed — the sons and daughters 
of this joyful occasion were gathered together, and then 
came also the fair-faced, but black-hearted Mrs. B. Satan 
among the sons of God was never less welcome, than this 
fury among her kindred. Tliey all knew what she came 
for, — to make mischief if possible. " Well now, if there 
aint Bets," exclaimed the old lady. The fatiier was 
moody and silent, knowing that she inherited largely 
of the disposition of her mother ; but he had experienced 
too many of her retorts of courtesy to say as much, for 
dear experience had taught him the discretion of silence. 
The brothers smiled at the prospect of fun and frolick, the 
sisters trembled for fear, and word flew round among the 



LEWIS CLARKE. 13 

slaves, " The old she-bear has come home ! look out ! look 
out ! " 

The wedding went forward. Polly, a very good sort of 
a girl to be raised in that region, was married, and re- 
ceived, as the first installment of her dower, a girl and a 
boy. Now was the time for Mrs. Banton, sweet good 
Mrs. Banton. " Poll has a girl and a boy, and I only had 
that fool of a girl ; I reckon if I go home without a boy 
too, this house wont be left standing." 

This was said, too, while the sugar of the wedding cake 
was yet melting upon her tongue ; how the bitter words 
would flow when the guests had retired, all began to 
imagine. To arrest this whirlwind of rising passion, her 
mother promised any boy upon the plantation, to be taken 
home on her return. Now my evil star was right in the 
top of the sky. Every boy was ordered in, to pass before 
this female sorceress, that she might select a victim for her 
unprovoked malice, and on whom to pour the vials of her 
wrath for years. I was that unlucky fellow. Mr. Camp- 
bell, my grandfather, objected, because it would divide a 
family, and offered her Moses, whose father and mother 
had been sold South. Mrs. Campbell put in for William's 
claim, dated ante-natum — before I was born ; but objec- 
tions and claims of every kind were swept away by the 
wild passion and shrill-toned voice of Mrs. B. Me she 
would have, and none else. Mr. Campbell went out to 
hunt and drive away bad thoughts — the old lady became 
quiet, for she was sure none of her blood run in my veins, 
and if there was any of her husband's there, it was no 
fault of hers. I was too young, only seven years of age, 
to understand what was going on. But my poor and af- 
fectionate mother understood and appreciated it all. When 
2 



14 NARRATIVE OF 

she left the kitchen of the Mansion House, where she was 
employed as cook, and came home to her own httle cot- 
tage, the tear of anguish was in her eye, and the image of 
sorrow upon every feature of her face. She knew the fe- 
male Nero, whose rod was now to be over me. That night 
sleep departed from her eyes ; with the youngest child clasp- 
ed firmly to her bosom, she spent the night in walking the 
floor, coming ever and anon to lift up the clothes and look 
at me and my poor brother who lay sleeping together. 
Sleeping, I said ; brother slept, but not I. I saw my mother 
when she first came to me ; and I could not sleep. The 
vision of that night, its deep, ineffaceable impression is now 
before my mind with all the distinctness of yesterday. In 
the morning I was put into the carriage with Mrs. B. and 
her children, and my weary pilgrimage of suffering was 
fairly begun. It was her business on the road for about 
twenty five or thirty miles to initiate her children into the 
art of tormenting their new victim. I was seated upon the 
bottom of the carriage, and these little imps were employed 
in pinching me, pulling my ears and hair, and they were 
stirred up by their mother like a litter of young wolves to 
torment me in every way possible. In the mean time I 
was compelled by the old she wolf, to call them '•' Master," 
" Mistress," and bow to them and obey them at the first 
call. 

During that day, I had indeed no very agreeable fore- 
boding of the torments to come ; but sad as were my an- 
ticipations, the reality was infinitely beyond them. Infinitely 
more bitter than death were the cruelties I experienced 
at the hand of this merciless woman. Save from one or 
two slaves on the plantation, during my ten years of cap- 
tivity here, I scarcely heard a kind word, or saw a smile 



LEWIS CLARKE. 15 

toward me from any living being. And now that I am 
where people look kind and act kindly toward me, it 
seems like a dream. I hardly seem to be in the same 
world that I was then. When I first got into the free 
States and saw every body look like they loved one 
another, sure enough I thought this must be the " Heaven" 
of Love I had heard something about. But I must go 
back to what I suffered from that wicked woman. It is 
hard work to keep the mind upon it ; I hate to think it 
over — but I must tell it — the world must know what is 
done in Kentucky. I cannot, however, tell all the ways, 
by which she tormented me, I can only give a few instan- 
ces of my suffering as specimens of the whole. A book of 
a thousand pages would not be large enough to tell of all 
the tears I shed, and the sufferings endured in that ten 
YEARS OF Purgatory. 

A very trivial offence was sufficient to call forth a great 
burst of indignation from this woman of ungoverned pas- 
sions. In my simplicity, I put my lips to the same vessel 
and drank out of it from which her children were accus- 
tomed to drink. She expressed her utter abhorrence of 
such an act, by throwing my head violently back, and 
dashing into my face two dippers of water. The shower 
of water was followed by a heavier shower of kicka — yes, 
delicate reader, this lady did not hesitate to kick, as well 
as cuff in a very plentiful manner — but the words bitter 
and cutting that followed were like a storm of hail upon 
my young heart. " She would teach me better manners 
than that — she would let me know I was to be brought up 
to her hand — she would have one slave that knew his 
place ; if I wanted water, go to the spring, and not drink 
therein the house." This was new times for me — for 



16 NARRATIVEOF 

some days I was completely benumbed with my sorrow. I 
could neither eat nor sleep. If there is any human being 
on earth, who has been so blessed as never to have tasted 
the cup of sorrow, and therefore is unable to conceive of 
suffering, if there be one so lost to all feeling as even to 
say that the slaves do not suffer, when families are sep- 
arated, let such an one go to the ragged quilt which was 
my couch and pillow and stand there night after night, for 
long weary hours, and see the bitter tears streaming down 
the face of that more than orphan boy, while with half sup- 
pressed sighs and sobs, he calls again and again upon 
his absent mother. 

" Say, Mother, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed, — 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son ? 
Wretch even then! Life's journey just begun.'" 

Let him stand by that couch of bitter sorrow through the 
terribly lonely night, and then wring out the wet end of 
those rags, and see how many tears yet remain, after the 
burning temples had absorbed all they could. He will not 
doubt, he cannot doubt but the slave has feeling. But I 
find myself running away again from Mrs. Banton — and I 
do n't much wonder neither. 

There were several children in the family, and my first 
main business was to wait upon them. Another young 
slave and myself have often been compelled to sit up by 
turns all night, to rock the cradle of a little, peevish scion 
of slavery. If the cradle was stopped, the moment they 
awoke a dolorous cry was sent forth to mother or father, 
that Lewis had gone to sleep. The reply to this call, 
would be a direction from the mother, for these petty ty- 
rants to get up and take the whip, and give the good-for- 



LEWIS CLARKE. 17 

nothing scoundrel a smart whipping. This was the mid- 
night pastime of a child ten or twelve years old. What 
might you expect of the future man ? 

There were four house-slaves in this family, including 
myself, and though we had not, in all respects, so hard 
work as the field hands, yet in many things our condition 
was much worse. We were constantly exposed to the 
whims and passions of every member of the family ; from 
the least to the greatest their anger was wreaked upon us. 
Nor was our life an easy one, in the hours of our toil or in 
the amount of labor performed. We were always required 
t-o sit up until all the family had retired ; then we must be 
up at early dawn in summer, and before day in winter. 
If we failed, through weariness or for any other reason, to 
appear at the first morning summons, we were sure to have 
our hearing quickened by a severe chastisement. Such 
horror has seized me, lest I might not hear the first shrill 
call, that I have often in dreams fancied I heard that un- 
welcome call, and have leaj>ed from my couch and walked 
through th<3 house and out of it before I awoke. I have 
gone and called the other slaves, in my sleep, and asked 
them if they did not hear master call. Never, while I 
live, will the remembrance of those long, bitter nights of 
fear pass from my mind. 

But I want to give you a few specimens of the abuse 
which I received. During the ten years that I lived with 
Mrs. Banton, I do not think there were as many days, when 
she was at home, that I, or some other slave, did not re- 
ceive some kind of beating or abu«e at her hands. It 
seemed as though she could not live nor sleep unless some 
poor back was smarting, some head beating with pain, or 

some eye filled with tears, around her. Her tender mer- 

2# 



18 NARRATIVE OF 

cies were indeed cruel. She brought up her children to 
imitate her example. Two of them manifested some dis- 
like to the cruelties taught them by their mother, but they 
never stood high in favor with her ; indeed, any thing 
like humanity or kindness to a slave, was looked upon by 
her as a great offence. 

Her instruments of torture were ordinarily the raw hide, 
or a bunch of hickory-sprouts seasoned in the fire and tied 
together. But if these were not at hand, nothing came 
amiss. She could relish a beating with a chair, the broom, 
tongs, shovel, shears, knife-handle, the heavy heel of her 
slipper ; her zeal was so active in these barbarous inflic- 
tions, that her invention was wonderfully quick, and some 
way of inflicting the requisite torture was soon found out. 
One instrument of torture is worthy of particular de- 
scription. This was an oak club, a foot and a half in 
length and an inch and a half square. With this deli- 
cate weapon she would beat us upon the hands and upon 
the feet until they were blistered. This instrument was 
carefully preserved for a period of four years. Every day, 
for that time, I was compelled to see that hated tool of 
cruelty lying in the chair by my side. Tlie least degree of 
delinciucncy either in not doing all the appointed work, or 
in look or behavior, was visited with a beating from this 
oak clul). That club will always be a prominent object in 
the picture of horrors of my life of more than twenty years 
of bitter bondage. 

When about nine years old I was sent in the evening 
to catch and kill a turkey. They were securely sleeping 
m a tree — their accustomed resting place for the night. 
I ai)proached as cautiously as possible, selected the victim 
I was directed to catch, but just as I grasped him in my 



LEWIS CLARKE. 19 

hand, my foot slipped and he made his escape from the 
tree and fled beyond my reach. I returned with a 
heavy heart to my mistress with the story of my misfortune. 
She was enraged beyond measure. She determined at 
once that I should have a whipping of the worst kind, and 
she was bent upon adding all the aggravations possible. 
Master had gone to bed drunk, and was now as fast asleep 
as drunkards ever are. At any rate he was filling the 
house with the noise of his snoring and with the perfume 
of his breath. I was ordered to go and call him — wake 
him up — and ask him to be kind enough to give me fifty 
good smart lashes. To be whipped is bad enough — to 
ask for it is worse- — to ask a drunken man to whip 
you is too bad. I would sooner have gone to a nest 
of rattlesnakes, than to the bed of this drunkard. But go 
I must. Softly I crept along, and gently shaking his arm, 
said with a trembling voice, " Master, Master, Mistress 
wants you to wake up." This did not go the extent of 
her command, and in a great fury she called out- — " What, 
you wont ask him to whip you, will you ?" I then added 
" Mistress wants you to give me fifty lashes." A bear at 
the smell of a lamb, was never roused quicker. " Yes, 
yes, that I will ; I'll give you such a whipping as you will 
never want again." And sure enough so he did. He sprang 
from the bed, seized me by the hair, lashed me with a hand- 
ful of switches, threw me my whole length upon the floor, 
beat, kicked and cuflfed me worse than he would a dog, and 
then threw me, with all his strength out of the door more 
dead than alive. There I lay for a long time scarcely able 
and not daring to move, till I could hear no sound of the 
furies within, and then crept to my couch, longing for 
death to put an end to my misery. I had no friend in the 



20 NARRATIVE OF 

world to whom I could utter one word of connplaint, or to 
whom I could look for protection. 

Mr. Banton owned a blacksmith shop in which he spent 
some of his time, though he was not a very efficient hand 
at the forge. One day Mistress told me to go over to the 
shop and let Master give me a flogging. I knew the mode 
of punishing there too Well. I would rather die than go. The 
poor fellow who worked in the shop, a very skilful workmanj 
neglected one day to pay over a half dollar that he had re-^ 
ceived of a customer for a job of work. This was quite an 
unpardonable offence. No right is more strictly maintain- 
ed by slave holders^ than the right they have to every cent 
of the slave's wages. The slave kept fifty cents of his own 
Wages in his pocket one night. This came to the knowledge 
of the Master. He called for the money and it was not 
spent — it was handed to him ; but there was the horrid in- 
tention of keeping it. The enraged Master put a handful 
of nail -rods into the fire, and when they were red hot took 
them out, and cooled one after another of them in the 
blood and flesh of the poor slave's back. T knew this was 
the shop mode of punishment ; I would not go, and Mr. 
Banton came home, and his amiable lady told him the 
story of my refusal ; he broke forth in a great rage, and 
gave me a most unmerciful beating, adding that if I had 
come, he would have burned the hot nail rods into my back, 

Mrs. Banton, as is common among slave holding women, 
seemed to hate and abuse me all tlie more, because I had 
some of the blood of her father in my veins. There is no 
slaves that are so badly abused, as those that are related to 
some of the women — or the children of their own hus- 
band ; it seems as though they never could iiate these quite 
bad enough. My sisters were as white and good look- 



LEWIS CLARKE. 21 

ing as any of the young ladies in Kentucky. It hap- 
pened once of a time, that a young man called at the 
house of Mr. Campbell, to see a sister of Mrs. Banton. 
Seeing one of my sisters in the house and pretty well dress- 
ed, with a strong family look, he thought it was Miss 
Campbell, and with that supposition addressed some con- 
versation to her which he had intended for the private ear 
of Miss C. The mistake was noised abroad and occasion- 
ed some amusement to young people. Mrs. Banton heard, 
it made her cauldron of wrath sizzling hot — every thing 
that diverted and amused other people seemed to enrage 
her. There are hot springs in Kentucky, she was just like 
one of them, only chuckfull of boiling poison. 

She must wreak her vengeance for this innocent mis- 
take of the young man, upon me. '•' She would fix me so 
that nobody should ever think I was white." Accordingly 
in a burning hot day, she made me take off every rag of 
clothes, go out into the garden and pick herbs for hours — 
in order to hum me black. When I went out she threw 
cold water on me so that the sun might take effect upon 
me, when I came in she gave me a severe beating on my 
blistered back. 

After I had lived with Mrs. B. three or four years I was 
put to spinning hemp, flax and tow, on an old fashioned 
foot wheel. There were four or five slaves at this busi- 
ness a good part of the time. We were kept at our work 
from daylight to dark in summer, from long before day 
to nine or ten o'clock in the evening in winter. Mrs. 
Banton for the most part was near or kept continually 
passing in and out to see that each of us performed as 
much work as she thought we ought to do. Being young 
and sick at heart all the time, it was very hard work to go 



22 NARRATIVE OF 

through the day and evening and not suffer exceedingly 
for want of more sleep. Very often too I was compelled 
to work beyond the ordinary hour to finish the appointed 
task of the day. Sometimes I found it impossible not to 
drop asleep at the wheel. 

On these occasions Mrs. B. had her peculiar contrivan- 
ces for keeping us awake. She would sometimes sit by 
the hour with a dipper of vinegar and salt, and throw it in 
my eyes to keep them open. My hair was pulled till 
there was no longer any pain from that source. And I 
can now suffer myself to he lifted by the hair of the head, 
without experiencing the least pain. 

She very often kept me from getting water to satisfy my 
thirst, and in one instance kept me for two entire days 
without a particle of food. 

But all my severe labor, bitter and cruel punishments for 
these ten years of captivity with this worse than Arab fam- 
ily, all these were as nothing to the sufferings experienced 
by being separated from my mother, brothers and sisters ; 
the same things, with them near to sympathize with me, to 
hear my story of sorrow, would have been comparatively 
tolerable. 

They were distant only about thirty miles, and yet in 
ten long, lonely years of childhood, I was only permitted to 
see them three times. 

My mother occasionally found an opj)ortunity to send 
me some token of remembrance and affection, a sugar 
plum or an apple, but I scarcely ever ate them — they were 
laid up and handled and wept over till they wasted away 
in my hand. 

My thoughts continually by day and my dreams by 
night were of mother and home, and the horror experi- 



LEWIS CLARKE. 23 

enced in the morning, when I awoke and behold it was 
a dream, is beyond the power of language to describe. 

But I am about to leave the den of robbers where I had 
been so long imprisoned. I cannot however call the read- 
er from his new and pleasant acquaintance with this 
amiable pair, without giving a few more incidents of their 
history. When this is done, and I have taken great pains, 
as I shall do to put a copy of this portrait in the hands of 
this Mrs. B., I shall bid her farewell. If she sees some- 
thing awfully hideous in her picture as here presented, she 
will be constrained to acknowledge it is true to nature — I 
have given it from no malice, no feeling of resentment to- 
ward her, but that the world may know what is done by 
slavery, and that slave holders may know, that their crimes 
will come to light. I hope and pray that Mrs. B. will repent 
of her many and aggravated sins before it is too late. 

The scenes between her and her husband while I was with 
them strongly illustrate the remark of Jefferson, that slavery 
fosters the worst passions of the master. Scarcely a day 
passed in which bitter words were not bandied from one to 
the other. I have seen Mrs. B. with a large knife drawn 
in her right hand, the other upon the collar of her husband, 
swearing and threatening to cut him square in two. 
They both drank freely, and swore like highwaymen. He 
was a gambler and a counterfeiter. I have seen and hand- 
led his moulds and his false coin. They finally quarrelled 
openly and separated, and the last I knew of them, he was 
living a sort of poor vagabond life in his native State, 
and she was engaged in a protracted law suit with some 
of her former friends about her father's property. 

Of course such habits did not produce great thrift in 
their worldly condition, and myself and other slaves were 



24 NARRATIVE OF 

mortgaged from time to time to make up the deficiency be- 
tween their income and expenses. I was transferred at the 
age of sixteen or seventeen to a Mr. K., whose name I for- 
bear to mention, lest if he or any other man should ever 
claim property where they never had any, this my own 
testimony might be brought in to aid their wicked purposes. 

In the exchange of masters, my condition was in many 
respects greatly improved — I was free at any rate from 
that kind of suffering experienced at the hand of Mrs. B. 
as though she delighted in cruelty for its own sake. My 
situation however with Mr. K. was far from enviable. 
Taken from the work in and around the house, and put 
at once at that early age to the constant work of a full 
grown man, I found it not an easy task always to escape 
the lash of the overseer. In the four or five years that I 
was with this man, the overseers were often changed. 
Sometimes we had a man that seemed to have some con- 
sideration, some mercy, but generally their eye seemed to 
be fixed upon one object, and that was to get the greatest 
possible amount of work out of every slave upon the plan- 
tation. When stooping to clear the tobacco plants from 
the worms which infest them, a work which draws most 
cruelly upon the back, some of these men would not 
allow us a moment to rest at the end of the row, but at 
the crack of the whip we were compelled to jump to our 
places from row to row for hours ; while the poor back 
was crying out with torture. Any complaint or remon- 
stance under such circumstances is sure to be answered in 
no other way than by the lash. As a sheep before her 
shearers is dumb, so a slave is not permitted to open his 
mouth. 

There were about one hundred and fifty slaves upon 



LEWIS CLARKE. 25 

this plantation. Generally we had enough in quantity of 
food. We had however but two meals a day, of corn meal 
bread, and soup, or meat of the poorest kind. Very often 
so little care had been taken to cure and preserve the 
bacon, that when it came to us, though it had been fairly 
killed once, it was more alive than dead. Occasionally we 
had some refreshment over and above the two meals, but 
this was extra, beyond the rules of the plantation. And to 
balance this gratuity, we were also frequently deprived of 
our food as a punishment. We suflered greatly, too, for 
want of water. The slave drivers have the notion that 
slaves are more healthy if allowed to drink but little, than 
they are if freely allowed nature's beverage. The slaves 
quite as confidently cherish the opinion, that if the master 
would drink less peach brandy and whisky, and give the 
slave more water, it would be better all round. As it is, 
the more the master and overseer drink, the less they seem 
to think the slave needs. 

In the winter we took our meals before day in the morn- 
ing and after work at night. In the summer at about 
nine o'clock in the morning and at two in the afternoon. 
When we were cheated out of our two meals a day, 
either by the cruelty or caprice of the overseer, we always 
felt it a kind of special duty and privilege to make up in 
some way the deficiency. To accomplish this we had many 
devices. And we sometimes resorted to our peculiar 
methods, when incited only by a desire to taste greater 
variety than our ordinary bill of fare atibrded. 

This sometimes lead to very disastrous results. The 

poor slave, who was caught with a chicken or a pig killed 

from the plantation, had his back scored most unmercifully. 

Nevertheless, the pigs would die without being sick or 

3 



26 NARRATIVE OF 

squealing once, and the hens, chickens and turkeys, some- 
times disappeared and never stuck up a feather to tell 
where they were buried. The old goose would sometimes 
exchange her whole nest of eggs for round pebbles ; and 
patient as that animal is, this quality was exhausted, and 
she was obliged to leave her nest with no train of offspring 
behind her. 

One old slave woman upon this plantation was altogether 
too keen and shrewd for the best of them. She would go 
out to the corn crib, with her basket, watch her opportuni- 
ty, with one effective blow pop over a little pig, slip him 
into her basket and put the cobs on top, trudge off to her 
cabin, and look just as innocent as though she had a right 
to eat of the work of her own hands. It was a kind of first 
principle, too, in her code of morals, that they that worked 
had a right to eat. The moral of all questions in relation 
to taking food was easily settled by Aunt Peggy. The 
only question with her was, how and when to do it. 

It could not be done openly, that was plain ; it must be 
done, secretly, if not in the day time by all means in the 
night. With a dead pig in the cabin, and the water all 
hot for scalding, she was at one time warned by her son 
that the Philistines were upon her. Her resources were 
fully equally to the sudden emergency, quick as thought, 
the pig was thrown into the boiling kettle, a door was put 
over it, her daughter seated upon it, and with a good 
thick quilt around her, the overseer found little Phillis tak- 
ing a steam bath for a terrible cold. The daughter acted 
well her part, groaned sadly, the mother was very busy in 
tucking in the quilt, and the overseer was blinded, and 
went away without seeing a bristle of tiie pig. 

Aunt P. cooked for herself, for another slave named 



LEWIS CLARKE. 27 

George, and for me. George was very successful in bring- 
ing home his share of the plunder. He could capture a 
pig or a turkey without exciting the least suspicion. The 
old lady often rallied me for want of courage for such en- 
terprizes. At length, 1 summoned resolution one rainy 
night, and determined there should be one from the herd 
of swine brought home by my hands. I went to the crib of 
corn, got my ear to shell, and my cart stake to despatch a 
little roaster. I raised my arm to strike, summoned cour- 
age again and again, but to no purpose. The scattered 
kernels were all picked up and no blow struck. Again I 
visited the crib, selected my victim, and struck — the 
blow glanced upon the side of the head, and instead of 
faUing, he ran oft" squealing louder than ever I heard a pig 
squeal before. I ran as fast in an opposite direction, made 
a large circuit and reached the cabin — emptied the hot 
water and made for my couch as soon as possible. I 
escaped detection, and only suffered from the ridicule of 
old Peggy and young George. 

Poor Jess, upon the same plantation, did not so easily 
escape. More successful in his effort, he killed his pig, 
but he was found out. He was hung up by the hands, 
with a rail between his feet, and full three hundred lashes 
scored in upon his naked back. For a long time his life 
hung in doubt, and his poor wife, for becoming a partaker 
after the fact, was most severely beaten. 

Another slave, employed as a driver upon the plantation, 
was compelled to whip his own wife, for a similar offence, 
so severely that she never recovered from the cruelty. She 
was literally whipped to death by her own husband. 

A slave, called Hall, the hostler on the plantation, made 
a successful sally one night upon the animals forbidden to 



28 NARRATIVE OF 

the Jews. The next day he went into the barn loft and 
fell asleep. While sleeping over his abundant supper, 
and dreaming perhaps of his feast, he heard the shrill voice 
of his master, crying out " the hogs are at the horse trough 
— where is Hall." The "hogs and Hall" coupled to- 
gether, were enough for the poor fellow. He sprung from 
the hay and made the best of his way off the plantation. 
He was gone six months, and at the end of this period he 
procured the intercession of the son-in-law of his master. 
and returned, escaping the ordinary punishment. But the 
transgression was laid up. Slave holders seldom forgive, 
they only postpone the time of revenge. When about to 
be severely flogged for some pretended offence, he took 
two of his grandsons and escaped as far towards Canada 
as Indiana. He was followed, captured, brought back 
and whipped most horribly. All the old score had been 
treasured up against him, and his poor back atoned for 
the whole at once. 

On this plantation was a slave named Sam, whose wife 
lived a few miles distant, and Sam was very seldom per- 
mittied to go and see his family. He worked in the black- 
smith shop. For a small offence, he was hunj; up by the 
hands, a rail between his feet, and whipped in turn by the 
master, overseer and one of the waiters, till his back was 
torn all to pieces, and in less than two months Sam was 
in his grave. His last words were, " Mother, tell master 
he has killed me at last for nothing, but tell him if God 
will forgive him, I will." 

A very poor white woman lived within about a mile of 
the plantation house. A female slave named Flora, know- 
ing she was in a very suffering condition, shelled out a 
peck of corn and carried it to her in the night. Next day 



LEWIS CLARKE. 29 

the old man found it out, and this deed of cliarity was 
atoned for by one hundred and fifty lashes upon the bare 
back of poor Flora. 

The master with whom I now lived, was a very passion- 
ate man. At one time he thought the work on the plan- 
tation did not go on as it ought. One morning, when he 
and the overseer waked up from a drunken frolick, they 
swore the hands should not eat a morsel of any thing, till 
a field of wheat of some sixty acres was all cradled. There 
were from thirty to forty hands to do the work. We were 
driven on to the extent of our strength, and although a brook 
ran through the field, not one of us was permitted to stop 
and taste a drop of water. Some of the men were so ex- 
hausted, that they reeled for very weakness ; two of the 
women fainted, and one of them was severely whipped to 
revive her. They were at last carried helpless from the 
field and thrown down under the shade of a tree. At 
about five o'clock in the afternoon the wheat was all cut 
and we were permitted to eat. Our suffering for want of 
water was excruciating. I trembled all over from the in- 
ward gnawing of hunger and from burning thirst. 

In view of the sufi^erings of this day we felt fully justi- 
fied in making a foraging expedition upon the milk room 
that night. And when master and overseer and all hands 
were locked up in sleep, ten or twelve of us went down to 
the spring house, — a house built over a spring to keep the 
milk and other things cool. We pressed altogether against 
the door, and open it came. We found half of a good 
baked pig, plenty of cream, milk and other delicacies, and 
as we felt in some measure delegated to represent all that 
had been cheated of their meals the day before, we ate 

plentifully. But after a successful plundering expedition 
3* 



30 NARRATIVE OF 

within the gates of the enemy's camp, it is not easy always 
to cover the retreat. We had a reserve in ihe pasture for 
this purpose. We went up to the herd of swine, and with 
a milk pail in hand, it was easy to persuade them there 
was more where that came from, and the whole tribe fol- 
lowed readily into the spring house, and we left them there 
to wash the dishes and wipe up the floor, while we retired 
to rest. This was not malice in us ; we did not love the 
waste which the hogs made ; but we must have something 
to eat, to pay for the cruel and reluctant fast ; and when 
we had obtained this, we must of course cover up our 
track. They watch us narrowly ; and to take an egg, a 
pound of meat, or anything else, however hungry we may 
be, is considered a great crime, — we are compelled there- 
fore, to waste a good deal sometimes, to get a little. 

I lived with this Mr. K. about four or five years. I then 
fell into the hands of his son. He was a drinking, ignorant 
man, but not so cruel as his father. Of him I hired my 
time at ^\'-2 a month, boarded and clothed myself. To 
meet my payments, I split rails, burned coal, peddled grass 
seed, and took hold of whatever I could find to do. This 
last master, or owner as he would call himself, died about 
one year before I left Kentucky. By the administrators I 
was hired out for a time, and at last put up upon the auc- 
tion block for sale. No hid could be obtained for me. 
There were two reasons in the way. One was, there were 
two or three old mortgages which were not settled, and 
the second reason given by the bidders was, I had had too 
manv privileges — had been permitted to trade for myself 
and go over the state — in short, to use their phrase, 1 was 
a " spoilt nigger." And sure enough I was, for all tiieir 
purposes. 1 had long thought and dreamed of Liberty ; I 



LEWIS CLARKE. 31 

was now determined to make an eflbrt to gain it. No 
tongue can tell the doubt, the perplexities, the anxiety which 
a slave feels, when making up his mind upon this subject. 
If he makes an effort and is not successful, he must be 
laughed at by his fellows ; he will be beaten unmercifully 
by the master, and then watched and used the harder for 
it all his life. 

And then if he gets away, who, what will he find ? He 
is ignorant of the world. All the white part of mankind, 
that he has ever seen, are enemies to him and all his kin- 
dred. How can he venture wliere none but white faces 
shall greet him ? The master tells him that aboUtionists 
decoy slaves off into the free states to catch them and sell 
them to Louisiana or Mississippi ; and if he goes to Canada, 
the British will put him in a mine under ground, with 
both eyes put out, for life. How does he know what or 
whom to believe ? A horror of great darkness comes upon 
him, as he thinks over what may befal him. Long, very 
long time did I think of escaping before I made the effort. 

At length the report was started that I was to be sold 
for Louisiana. Then I thought it was time to act. My 
mind was made up. This was about two weeks before I 
started. The first plan was formed between a slave named 
Isaac and myself. Isaac proposed to take one of the 
horses of his mistress, and I was to take my pony, and we 
were to ride off together, I as master and he as slave. We 
started together and went on five miles. My want of con- 
fidence in the plan induced me to turn back. Poor Isaac 
plead like a good fellow to go forward. I am satisfied 
from experience and obserA^ation that both of us must have 
been captured and carried back. I did not know enough 
at that time to travel and manage a waiter. Every thing 



32 NARRATIVEOF 

would have been done in such an awkward manner that a 
keen eye would have seen through our plot at once. I 
did not know the roads, and could not have read the guide 
boards ; and ignorant as many people are in Kentucky, they 
would have thought it strange to see a man with a waiter, 
who could not read a guide board. I was sorry to leave 
Isaac, but I am satisfied I could have done him no good in 
the way proposed. 

After this failure I staid about two weeks, and, after 
having arranged every thing to the best of my knowledge, 
I saddled my pony, went into the cellar where I kept my 
grass seed apparatus, put my clothes into a pair of saddle- 
bags, and them into my seed-bag, and thus equipped set 
sail for the North Star. O what a day was that to me. 
This was on Saturday, in August, 1841. I wore my com- 
mon clothes, and was very careful to avoid special suspi- 
cion, as I already imagined the administrator was very 
watchful of me. The place from which I started was 
about fifty miles from Lexington. The reason why I do 
not give the name of the place, and a more accurate loca- 
tion, must be obvious to any one who remembers that 
in the eye of the law I am yet accounted a slave, and no 
spot in the United States affords an asylum for the wan- 
derer. True, I feel protected in the hearts of the many 
warm friends of the slave by whom I am surrounded, but 
this protection does not come from the laws of any one of 
the United States. 

But to return. After riding about fifteen miles, a Bai> 
list minister overtook me on the road, saying, " How do 
you do, boy ; are you free ? I always thouglit you were free, 
till I saw them try to sell you the other day." I then 
wished him a thousand miles ofT, preaching, if he would, 



LEWIS CLARKE. 33 

to the whole plantation, " Servants obey your masters ; " 
but I wanted neither sermons, questions, nor advice from 
him. At length I mustered resolution to make some kind 
of a reply. — What made you think I was free? He re- 
plied, that he had noticed I had great privileges, that I did 
much as I liked, and that I was almost white. O yes, I 
said, but there are a great many slaves as white as I am. 
" Yes," he said, and then went on to name several ; among 
others, one who had lately, as he said, run away. This 
was touching altogether too near upon what I was think- 
ing of. Now, said I, he must know, or at least reckons, 
what I am at — running away. 

However, I blushed as little as possible, and made 
strange of the fellow who had lately run away, as though 
I knew nothing of it. The old fellow looked at me, as it 
seemed to me, as though he would read my thoughts. I 
wondered what in the world a slave could run away for, 
especially if they had such a chance as I had had for the 
last few years. He said, " I suppose you would not run 
away on any account, you are so well treated." O, said 
I, I do very well — very well, sir. If you should ever 
hear that I had run away, be certain it must be because 
there is some great change in my treatment. 

He then began to talk with me about the seed in my 
bag, and said that he should want to buy some. Then, I 
thought, he means to get at the truth by looking in my 
seed-bag, where, sure enough, he would not find grass 
seed, but the seeds of Liberty. However, he dodged off 
soon, and left me alone. And although I have heard say, 
poor company is better than none, I felt much better with- 
out him than with him. 

When I had gone on about twenty-five miles, I went 



34 NARRATIVE OF 

down into a deep valley by the side of the road, and changed 
my clothes. I reached Lexington about seven o'clock 
that evening, and put up with brother Cyrus. As I had 
often been to Lexington before, and stopped with him, it 
excited no attention from the slave holding gentry. More- 
over, I had a pass from the administrator, of whom I had 
hired my time. I remained over the Sabbath with Cyrus, 
and we talked over a great many plans for future opera- 
tions, if my efforts to escape should be successful. In- 
deed we talked over all sorts of ways for me to proceed. 
But both of us were very ignorant of the roads, and of 
the best way to escape suspicion. And I sometimes won- 
der, that a slave, so ignorant, so timid, as he is, ever 
makes the attempt to get his freedom. '' Without are 
foes, within are fears." 

Monday morning, bright and early, I set my face in 
good earnest toward the Ohio River, determined to see 
and tread the north bank of it, or die in the attempt. I 
said to myself, one of two things, Freedom or Death. 
The first night I reached Mayslick, fifty odd miles from 
Lexington. Just before reaching this village, I stopped 
to think over my situation, and determine how I would 
pass that night. On that night hung all my hopes. I was 
within twenty miles of Ohio. My horse was unable to 
reach the river that night. And besides, to travel and at- 
tempt to cross the river in the night, would excite suspi- 
cion. I must spend the night there. But how? At one 
time, I thought, I will take my pony out into the field 
and give him some corn, and sleep myself on the grass. 
But then the dogs will be out in the evening, and if 
caught under such circumstances, they will lake me for 
a thief if not for a runaway. That will not do. So after 



LEWIS CLARKE. 35 

weighing the matter all over, I made a plunge right into 
the heart of the village, and put up at the tavern. 

After seeing my pony disposed of, I looked into the bar- 
room, and saw some persons that I thought were from my 
part of the country, and would know me. I shrunk back 
with horror. What to do I did not know. I looked 
across the street, and saw the shop of a silversmith. A 
thought of a pair of spectacles, to hide my face, struck me. 
I went across the way, and began to barter for a pair of 
double eyed green spectacles. When I got them on, they 
blind-folded me, if they did not others. Every thing 
seemed right up in my eyes. I hobbled back to the 
tavern, and called for supper. This I did to avoid notice, 
for I felt like any thing but eating. At tea I had not 
learned to measure distances with my new eyes, and the 
first pass I made with my knife and fork at my plate, went 
right into my cup. This confused me still more, and, after 
drinking one cup of tea, I left the table, and got ofT to bed 
as soon as possible. But not a wink of sleep that night. 
All was confusion, dreams, anxiety and trembling. 

As soon as day dawned, I called for my horse, paid my 
reckoning, and was on my way, rejoicing that that night 
was gone, any how. I made all diligence on my way, 
and was across the Ohio, and in Aberdeen by noon that 
day ! 

What my feelings were when I reached the free shore, 
can be better imagined than described. I trembled all 
over with deep emotion, and I could feel my hair rise 
up on my head. I was on what was called a free soil, 
among a people who had no slaves. I saw white men at 
work, and no slave smarting beneath the lash. Every 
thing was indeed neiv and wonderful. Not knowing 



36 NARRATIVE OF 

where to find a friend, and being ignorant of the country. 
— unwilhiig to inquire lest I should betray my ignorance, 
it was a whole week before I reached Cincinnati. At one 
place where I put up, I had a great many more questions 
put to me than I wished to answer. At another place I 
was very much annoyed by the officiousness of the land- 
lord, who made it a point to supply every guest with news- 
papers. I took the copy handed me, and turned it over 
in a somewhat awkward manner, I suppose. He came to 
me to point out a Veto, or some other very important 
news. I thought it best to decline his assistance, and 
gave up the paper, saying my eyes were not in a fit condi- 
tion to read much. 

At another place, the neighbors, on learning that a 
Kentuckian was at the tavern, camie in great earnestness 
to find out what my business was. Kentuckians some- 
times came there to kidnap their citizens — they were in 
the habit of watching them close. I at length satisfied 
them, by assuring them that I was not, nor my father be- 
fore me, any slave holder at all ; but, lest their suspicions 
should be excited in another direction, I added, my grand- 
father was a slave holder. 

At Cincinnati I found some old acquaintances, and spent 
several days. In passing through some of the streets, I 
several times saw a great slave dealer from Kentucky, who 
knew me, and when I approached him, I was very careful 
to give him a wide berth. The only advice that I here re- 
ceived, was from a man who had once been a slave. He 
urged me to sell my pony, go up the river to Portsmouth, 
then take the canal for Cleveland, and cross over to Cana- 
da. I acted u[)on this suggestion, sold my horse for a 
small sum, as he was pretty well used up, took passage for 



LEWIS CLARKE. 37 

Portsmouth, and soon found myself on the canal-boat, 
headed for Cleveland. On the boat I became acquainted 
with a Mr. Conoly, from New York. He was very sick 
with fever and ague, and as he was a stranger and alone, I 
took the best possible care of him for a time. One day, in 
conversation with him, he spoke of the slaves in the most 
harsh and bitter language, and was especially severe on 
those who attempted to run away. Thinks I, you are 
not the man for me to have much to do with. I found the 
spirit of slaveholding was not all South of the Ohio River. 
No sooner had I reached Cleveland, than a trouble came 
upon me from a very unexpected quarter. A rough, swear- 
ing, reckless creature in the shape of a man, came up to 
me and declared I had passed a bad five dollar bill upon 
his wife, in the boat, and he demanded the silver for it. I 
had never seen him nor his wife before. He pursued me 
into the tavern, swearing and threatening all the way. 
The travellers, that had just arrived at the tavern, were 
asked to give their names to the clerk, that he might enter 
them upon the book. He called on me for my name, just 
as this ruffian was in the midst of his assault upon me. 
On leaving Kentucky I thought it best for my own security 
to take a new name, and I had been entered on the boat, 
as Archibald Campbell. I knew, with such a charge as 
this man was making against me, it would not do to change 
my name from the boat to the hotel. At the moment, I 
could not recollect what I had called myself, and for a few 
minutes, I was in a complete puzzle. The clerk kept call- 
ing, and I made believe deaf, till at length the name popped 
back again, and I w^as duly enrolled a guest at the tavern 
in Cleveland. I had heard before of persons being fright- 
ened out of their Christian names, but I was fairly scared 
4 



38 NARRATIVE OF 

out of both mine for awhile. The landlord soon protected 
me from the violence of the bad-meaning man, and drove 
him away from the house. 

I was detained at Cleveland several days, not knowing 
how to get across the Lake into Canada. I went out to 
the shore of the lake again and again, to try and see the 
other side, but I could see no hill, mountain, nor city of the 
asylum I sought. I was afraid to inquire where it was, lest 
it would betray such a degree of ignorance as to excite 
suspicion at once. One day I heard a man ask another, 
employed on board a vessel, •' and where does this vessel 
trade ? " Well, I thought, if that is a proper question for 
you, it is for me. So 1 passed along and asked of every 
vessel, " Where does this vessel trade ? " At last the 
answer came, " over here in Kettle Creek, near Port Stan- 
ley." And where is that, said I. " O, right over here in 
Canada^ That was the sound for me, " over here in Can- 
ada." The captain asked me if I wanted a passage to Can- 
ada. I thought it would not do to be too earnest about it, 
lest it would betray me. I told him I some thought of going, 
if I could get a passage cheap. We soon came to terms 
on this point, and that evening we set sail. After proceed- 
ing only nine miles the wind changed, and the captain re- 
turned to port again. This I thought was a very bad 
omen. However, I stuck by, and the next evening at nine 
o'clock we set sail once more, and at daylight, we were in 
Canada. 

When I stepped ashore here, 1 said, sure enough I am 
KRKK. Good heaven ! what a sensation, when it first visits 
the bosom of a full grown man — one, born to bondage — 
one, who iiad been taught from early infancy, that this was 
his inevitable lot for life. Not till then, did I dare to cherish 



LEWIS CLARKE. 39 

for a moment the feeling that one of the Hmbs of my body, 
was my own. The slaves often say, when cut in the hand 
or foot, " plague on the old foot, or the old hand, it is mas- 
ter's — let him take care of it — Nigger don 't care if he 
never get well." My hands, my feet, were now my own. 
But what to do with them was the next question. A 
strange sky was over me, a new earth under me, strange 
voices all around — even the animals were such as I had 
never seen. A flock of prairie hens and some black geese, 
were entirely new to me. I was entirely alone, no human 
being that I had ever seen before, where I could speak to 
him or he to me. 

And could I make that country ever seem like home 1 
Some people are very much afraid all the slaves will run 
up North, if they are ever free. But I can assure them 
that they will run hack again if they do. If I could have 
been assured of my freedom in Kentucky then, I would 
have given any thing in the world for the prospect of spend- 
ing my life among my old acquaintances, and where I first 
saw the sky, and the sun rise and go down. It was a long 
time before I could make the sun work right at all. It would 
rise in the wrong place, and go down wrong, and finally it 
behaved so bad, I thought it could not be the same sun. 

There was a little something added to this feeling of 
strangeness. I could not forget all the horrid stories slave- 
holders tell about Canada. They assure the slave, that 
when they get hold of slaves in Canada, they make various 
uses of them. Sometimes they skin the head, and wear 
the wool on their coat collars — put them into the lead 
mines with both eyes out — the young slaves they eat — 
and as for the Red Coats, they are sure death to the slave. 
However ridiculous to a well informed person such stories 



40 NARRATIVE OF 

may appear, they work powerfully upon the excited imagi- 
nation of an ignorant slave. With these stories all fresh 
in mind, when I arrived at St. Thomas, I kept a bright 
look out for the Red Coats. As I was turning the corner 
of one of the streets, sure enough, there stood before me 
a Red Coat in full uniform, with his tall bear-skin cap a 
foot and a half high, his gun shouldered, and he standing 
as erect as a guide-post. Sure enough, tiiat is the fellow 
that they tell about catching the slave. I turned on mv 
heel and sought another street. On turning another cor- 
ner, the same soldier, as I thought, faced me with his 
black cap and stern look. Sure enough, my time has come 
now. I was as near scared to death then, as a man can 
be and breathe. I could not have felt any worse, if he 
had shot me right through the heart. I made off again as 
soon as I dared to move. I inquired for a tavern. When 
I came up to it, there was a great brazen lion sleepirig 
over the door, and although I knew it was not alive, I had 
been so well frightened, that I was almost afraid to go in. 
Hunger drove me to it at last, and I asked for something 
to eat. 

On my way to St. Thomas I w?is also badly frightened. 
A man asked me who I was. I was afraid to tell him, a 
runaway slave, lest he should have me to the mines. 1 
was afraid to say, " I am an American," lest he should 
shoot me, for I knew there had been trouble between the 
British and Americans. I inquired at length for the place 
where the greatest number of colored soldiers were. I 
was told there were a great many at New London ; so for 
New London I started. I got a ride with some country 
people to the latter place. They asked me who I was, 
and I told tlicni from Kentucky ; and they, in a familiar 



LEWIS CLARKE, 41 

way, called me " Old Kentuck." I saw some soldiers on 
the way, and asked the men what they had soldiers for. 
They said they were kept " to get drunk and be whipt ; " 
that was the chief use they made of them. At last 1 
reached New London, and here I found soldiers in great 
numbers. I attended at their parade, and saw the guard 
driving the people back ; but it required no guard to keep 
me off. I thought, if you will let me alone, I will not 
trouble you. I was as much afraid of a red coat, as I 
would have been of a bear. Here I asked again for the 
colored soldiers. The answer was, " Out at Chatham, 
about seventy miles distant." I started for Chatham. 
The first night I stopped at a place called the Indian Set- 
tlement. The door was barred at the house where I was, 
which I did not like so well, as I was yet somewhat afraid 
of their Canadian tricks. Just before I got to Chatham, 
I met two colored soldiers, with a white man bound, and 
driving him along before them. This was something quite 
new. I thought then, sure enough this is the land for me. 
I had seen a great many colored people bound, and in the 
hands of the whites, but this was changing things right 
about. This removed all my suspicions, and ever after I 
felt quite easy in Canada. I made diligent inquiry for 
several slaves that I had known in Kentucky, and at 
length found one named Henry. He told me of several 
others with whom I had been acquainted, and from him 
also I received the first correct information about brother 
Milton. I knew that he had left Kentucky about a year 
before I did, and I supposed, until now, that he was in 
Canada. Henry told me he was at Oberlin, Ohio. 

At Chatham I hired myself for a while to recruit my 
purse a little, as it had become pretty well drained by thi> 
4* 



42 NARRATIVE OF 

time. I had only about sixty-four dollars when I left 
Kentucky, and I had been living upon it now for about 
six weeks. Mr. Everett, with whom I worked, treated me 
kindly, and urged me to stay in Canada, offering me busi- 
ness on his farm. He declared " there was no ' free state ' 
in America, all were slave states — bound to slavery, and 
the slave could have no asylum in any of them." There 
is certainly a great deal of truth in this remark. I have 
felt, wherever I may be in the United States, the kidnap- 
pers may be upon me at any moment. If I should creep 
up to the top of the monument on Bunker's Hill, beneath 
which my father fought, I should not be safe even there. 
The slave-mongers have a right, by the laws of the United 
Stales, to seek me even upon the top of the monument, 
whose base rests upon the bones of those who fought for 
freedom. 

I soon after made my way to Sandwich, and crossed 
over to Detroit, on my way to Ohio, to see Milton. While 
in Canada I swapped away my pistol, as I thought I 
should not need it, for an old watch. When I arrived at 
Detroit, I found my watch was gone. I put my baggage, 
with nearly every cent of money I had, on board the boat 
for Cleveland, and went back to Sandwich to search for 
the old watch. The ferry here was about three-fourths of 
a mile, and in my zeal for the old watch, I wandered so 
far that I did not get back in season for the boat, and had 
the satisfaction of hearing her last bell just as I was about 
to leave the Canada shore. When I got back to Detroit 
I was in a fine fix ; my money and my clothes gone, and 
I left to wander about in the streets of Detroit. A man 
may be a man for all clothes or money, but he don't feel 
quite so well, any how. What to do now I could hardly 



LEWIS CLARKE. 43 

tell. It was about the first of November. I wandered 
about and picked up something very cheap for supper, and 
paid ninepence for lodging. All the next day no boat for 
Cleveland. Long days and nights to me. At length 
another boat was up for Cleveland. I went to the captain 
to tell him my story ; he was very cross and savage — said 
a man no business from home without money — that so 
many told stories about losing money that he did not know 
what to believe. He finally asked me how much money 1 
had. I told him sixty-two and a half cents. Well, he 
said, give me that, and pay the balance when you get 
there. I gave him every cent I had. We were a day 
and a night on the passage, and I had nothing to eat 
except some cold potatoes, which I picked from a barrel of 
fragments, and cold victuals. I went to the steward, or 
cook, and asked for something to eat, but he told me his 
orders were strict to give away nothing, and if he should 
do it, he would lose his place at once. 

When the boat came to Cleveland it was in the night, 
and I thought I would spend the balance of the night in 
the boat. The steward soon came along, and asked if T 
did not know that the boat had landed, and the passengers 
had gone ashore. I told him I knew it, but I had paid 
the captain all the money I had, and could get no shelter 
for the night unless I remained in the boat. He was very 
harsh and unfeeling, and drove me ashore, although it was 
very cold, and snow on the ground. I walked around 
awhile, till I saw a light in a small house of entertainment. 
I called for lodging. In the morning, the Frenchman, 
who kept it, wanted to know if I would have breakfast. 
I told him no. He said then I might pay for my lodging. 
I told him I would do so before I left, and that my outside 
coat might hang there till I paid him. 



44 NARRATIVE OF 

I was obliged at once to start on an expedition for rais- 
ing some cash. My resources were not very numerous. 1 
took a hair brush that I had paid three York shillings for, 
a short time before, and sallied out to make a sale. But 
the wants of every person I met seemed to be in the same 
direction with my own; they wanted money more than 
hair brushes. At last I found a customer who paid me 
ninepence cash, and a small balance in the shape of some- 
thing to cat for breakfast. I was started square for that day, 
and delivered out of my present distress. But hunger will 
return, and all the quicker when a man don't know how to 
satisfy it when it does come. I went to a plain boarding 
house, and told the man just my situation, that I was wait- 
ing for the boat to return from Buffalo, hoping to get my 
baggage and money. He said he would board me two or 
three days and risk it. I tried to get work, but no one 
seemed inclined to employ me. At last I gave up in de- 
spair, about my luggage, and concluded to start as soon as 
possible for Oberlin. I sold my great coat for two dollars, 
paid one for my board, and with the other I was going to 
pay my fare to Oberlin. That night, after I had made all 
my arrangements to leave in the morning, the boat came. 
On hearing the bell of a steam boat, in the night, I jumped 
up and went to the wliarf, and found my baggage ; paid 
a quarter of a dollar for the long journey it had been 
carried, and glad enough to get it again at that. 

The next morning I took the stage for Oberlin : found 
several abolitionists from that ])lacc in the coach. They 
mentioned a slave named Milton Clarke, who was living- 
there, that he had a brother in Canada, and that he ex- 
pected him there soon. They spoke in a very friendly man- 
ner of Milton, and of the slaves ; so after we had had a long 



LEVVISCLARKE. 45 

conversation, and I perceived they were all friendly, I made 
myself known to them. To be thus surrounded at once 
with friends, in a land of strangers, was something quite 
new to me. The impression made by the kindness of 
these strangers upon my heart, will never be effaced. I 
thought there must be some new principle at work here, 
such as I had not seen much of in Kentucky. That even- 
ing I arrived at Oberlin, and found Milton boarding at a 
Mrs. Cole's. Finding here so many friends, my first im.- 
pression was that all the abolitionists in the country must 
live right there together. When Milton spoke of going to 
Massachusetts, " No " said I, " we better stay here where 
the abolitionists live." x\nd when they assured me that 
the friends of the slave were more numerous in Massachu- 
setts than in Ohio, I was greatly surprised. 

Milton and I had not seen each other for a year ; during 
that time we had passed through the greatest change in out- 
ward condition, that can befal a man in this world. How 
glad we were to greet each other in what we then thought 
a free State, may be easily imagined. We little dreamed of 
the dangers sleeping around us. Brother Milton had not 
encountered so much danger in getting away as I had. But 
his time for suffering was soon to come. For several years 
before his escayje, Milton had hired his time of his master, 
and had been employed as a steward in different steam 
boats upon the river. He had paid as high as two hun- 
dred dollars a year for his time. From his master he had 
a written pass, permitting him to go up and down the Mis- 
sissippi and Ohio rivers when he pleased. He found it easy 
therefore to land on the north side of the Ohio river, and 
concluded to take his own time for returning. He had 
caused a letter to be written to Mr. L., his pretended 



46 NARRATIVE OF 

owner, telling him to give himself no anxiety on his account ; 
that he had found by experience he had wit enough to take 
care of himself, and he thought the care of his master was 
not worth the two hundred dollars a year which he had 
been paying for it for four years ; that on the whole, if his 
master would be quiet and contented, he thought he should 
do very well. This letter, the escape of two persons be- 
longing to the same family, and from the same region, in 
one year, waked up the fears and the spite of the slave 
holders. However, they let us have a little respite, and 
through the following winter and spring, we were employed 
in various kinds of work at Oberlin and in the neighbor- 
hood. 

All this time I was deliberating upon a plan by which 
to go down and rescue Cyrus, our youngest brother, from 
bondage. In July 1842, I gathered what little money I 
had saved, which was not a large sum, and started for Ken- 
tucky again. As near as I remember I had about twenty 
dollars. I did not tell my plan to but one or two at Oberlin, 
because there were many slaves there, and I did not know 
but that it might get to Kentucky in some way through 
them sooner than I should. On my way down through 
Ohio, I advised with several well known friends of the 
slave. Most of them pointed out the dangers I should en- 
counter, and urged me not to go. One young man told inc 
to go, and the God of heaven would prosper mc. I knew 
it was dangerous, but I did not then dream of all that I 
must suffer in body and mind before I was through with 
it. It is not a very comfortable feeling to be creeping 
round day and night for nearly two weeks together in a 
den of lions, where if one of them happens to put his paw- 
on you, it is certain death, or something much worse. 



LEWIS CLARKE. 47 

At Ripley, I met a man who had lived in Kentucky ; he 
encouraged me to go forward, and directed me about the 
roads. He told me to keep on a back route not much trav- 
elled, and I should not be likely to be molested. I crossed 
the river at Ripley, and when I reached the other side, and 
was again upon the soil on which [had suffered so much, I 
trembled, shuddered, at the thoughts of what might happen 
to me. My fears, my feelings overcame for the moment all 
my resolution, and I was for a time completely overcome 
with emotion. Tears flowed like a brook of water. I had 
just left kind friends ; I was now where every man I met 
would be my enemy. It was a long time before I could sum- 
mon courage sufficient to proceed. I had with me a rude 
map made by the Kentuckian vv^hom I saw at Ripley. Af- 
ter examining this as well as I could, I proceeded. In the 
afternoon of the first day, as I was sitting in a stream to 
bathe and cool my feet, a man rode up on horseback, and 
entered into a long conversation with me. He asked me 
some questions about my travelling, but none but what I 
could easily answer. He pointed out to me a house where 
a white woman lived, who he said had recently suffered 
terribly from a fright. Eight slaves, that were running 
away, called for something to eat, and the poor woman 
was sorely scared by them. For his part, the man said, he 
hoped they never would find the slaves again. Slavery 
was the curse of Kentucky. He had been brought up to 
work and he liked to work, but slavery made it it disgrace- 
ful for any white man to work. From this conversation I 
was almost a good mind to trust this man, and tell him my 
story, but on second thought, I concluded it might be just as 
safe not to do it. A hundred or two dollars for returning 
a slave, for a poor man, is a heavy temptation. At night 



48 NARRATIVEOF 

T stopped at the house of a widow woman, — not a tavern ex- 
actly, but they often entertained people there. The next day 
when I got as far as Cynthiana, within about twenty miles 
of Lexington, I was sore all over and lame from having 
walked so far. I tried to hire a horse and carriage to help 
me a few miles. At last I agreed with a man to send me 
forward to a certain place, which he said was twelve 
miles, and for which I paid him, in advance, three dollars. 
It proved to be only seven miles. This was now Sabbath 
day, as I had selected that as the most suitable day for 
making my entrance into Lexington. There is much more 
passing in and out on that day, and I thought I should be 
much less observed than on any other day. 

When I approached the city and met troops of idlers on 
foot and on horseback, sauntering out of the city, I was 
very careful to keep my umbrella before my face, as people 
passed, and kept my eyes right before me. There were many 
persons in the place, who had known me, and I did not 
care to be recognized by any of them. Just before enter- 
ing the city, I turned ofl' to the field, and laid down under 
a tree and waited for night. When its curtains were fairly 
over me, I started up, took two pocket handkerchiefs, tied 
one over my forehead, the other under my chin, and march- 
ed forward for the city. It was not then so dark as I 
wished it was. I met a young slave driving cows. He 
was quite disposed to condole with me, and said, in a very 
sympathetic manner, " Massa sick."' " Yes, boy," I said, 
-' Massa sick, — drive along your covins." The next color- 
ed man I met, I knew liim in a moment, but he did not 
recognize me. I made for the wash-house of the man with 
whom Cyrus lived. I reached it without attracting any 
notice, and found there an old slave as true as steel. I 



LEWIS CLARKE. 49 

inquired for Cyrus, he said lie was at home. He very 
soon recollected me ; and while the boy was gone to call 
Cyrus, he uttered a great many exclamations of wonder to 
think I should return. 

" Good heaven, boy ! what you back here for ? What 
on arth you here for, my son ? O ! I scared for you ! 
They kill you, just as sure as I alive, if they catch you ! 
Why, in name of Liberty, didn't you stay away, when 
you gone so slick ! Sartin, I never did 'spect to see you 
again ! " I said, Don't be scared. But he kept repeating, 
" I scared for you ! I scared for you ! " When I told him 
my errand, his v^'onder was somewhat abated, but still his 
exclamations were repeated all the evening. " What 
brought you back here ? " In a few minutes Cyrus made 
his appearance, filled with little less of wonder than the 
old man had manifested. I had intended, when I left him 
about a year before, that I would return for him, if I was 
successful in my effort for freedom. He was very glad to 
see me, and entered with great animation upon the plan 
for his own escape. He had a wife, who was a free 
woman, and consequently he had a home. He soon went 
out, and left me in the wash-room with the old man. He 
went home to apprize his wife, and to prepare a room for 
my concealment. His wife is a very active, industrious 
woman, and they were enabled to rent a very comfortable 
house, and at this time had a spare room in the attic, 
where I could be thoroughly concealed. 

He soon returned, and said every thing was ready. I 
went home with him, and before ten o'clock at night I was 
stowed away in a little room that was to be my prison- 
house for about a week. It was a comfortable room ; still 
the confinement was close, and I was unable to take exer- 
5 



50 NARRATIVE OF 

cise, lest the people in the other part of the house should 
hear. I got out and walked around a little in the even- 
ing, but suffered a good deal for want of more room to 
live and move in. During the day Cyrus was busy mak- 
ing arrangements for his departure. He had several little 
sums of money in the hands of the foreman of the tan- 
yard, and in other hands. Now it would not do to go 
right boldly up and demand his pay of every one that 
owed him ; this would lead to suspicion at once. So he 
contrived various ways to get in his little debts. He had 
seen the foreman one day counting out some singular coin 
of some foreign nation ; he pretended to take a great lik- 
ing to that foreign money, and told the man, if he would 
pay him what was due him in that money, he would give 
him two or three dollars. From another person he took 
an order on a store, and so, in various ways, he got in his 
little debts as well as he could. At night we contrived to 
plan the ways and means of escaping. Cyrus had never 
been much accustomed to walking, and he dreaded very 
much to undertake such a journey. He proposed to take 
a couple of horses, as he thought he had richly earned 
them, over and above all he had received. I objected to 
this, because, if we were caught, either in Kentucky or 
out of it, they would bring against us the charge of steal- 
ing, and this would be far worse than the charge of run- 
ning away. 

To all these propositions I firmly replied, " We must 
go on foot." In the course of a week, Cyrus had gather- 
ed something like twenty dollars, and we were ready for 
our journey. A family lived in the same house with 
Cyrus, in a room below. How to get out in the early part 
of the evening, and not be discovered, was not an easy 



LEWIS CLARKE. 51 

question. Finally, we agreed that Cyrus should go down 
and get into conversation with them, while I slipped out 
with his bundle of clothes, and repaired to a certain 
street, where he was to meet me. 

As I passed silently out at the door, Cyrus was cracking 
his best jokes, and raising a general laugh, which com- 
pletely covered my retreat. Cyrus soon took quiet and 
unexpected leave of his frienis in that family, and leave 
also of his wife above — for a short time only. At a little 
past eight of the clock, we were beyond the bounds of the 
city. His wife did all she could to assist him in his effort 
to gain his inalienable rights. She did not dare, however, 
to let the slaveholders know that she knew any thing of his 
attempt to run away. He had told the slaves that he was 
going to see his sister, about twelve miles off. It was Sat- 
urday night when we left Lexington. On entering the 
town, when I went in, I was so intent upon covering up my 
face, that I took but little notice of the roads. We were 
very soon exceedingly perplexed to know what road to 
take. The moon favored us, for it was a clear, beautiful 
night. On we came, but at the cross of the roads what to 
do we did not know. At length I climbed one of the 
guide posts, and spelled out the names as well as I could. 
We were on the road to freedom's boundary, and with a 
strong step we measured off the path ; but again the cross 
roads perplexed us. This time we took hold of the sign 
post and lifted it out ot the ground, and turned it upon one 
of its horns, and spelled out the way again. As we start- 
ed from this goal, I told Cyrus we had not put up the 
sign post. He pulled forward, and said he guessed we 
would do that when we came back. Whether the sign 
board is up or down, we have never been there to see. 



52 NARRATIVE OF 

Soon after leaving the city, we met a great many of the 
patrols, but they did not arrest us, and we had no disposi- 
tion to trouble them. 

While we vvere pressing on by moon light, and some- 
times in great doubt about the road, Cyrus was a good 
deal discouraged. He thought if we got upon the wrong 
road, it would be almost certain death for us, or something 
worse. In the morning we found that, on account of our 
embarrassment in regard to the roads, we had only made 
a progress of some twenty or twenty-five miles. But we 
were greatly cheered to find they were so many miles in 
the right direction. Then we put the best foot forward, 
and urged our way as fast as possible. In the afternoon it 
rained very hard, the roads were muddy and slippery. 
We had slept none the night before, and had been of 
course very much excited. In this state of mind and of 
body, just before dark we stopped in a little patch of 
bushes, to discuss the expediency of going to a house, 
which we saw at a distance, to spend the night. 

As we sat there, Cyrus became very much excited, and 
pointing across the road, exclaimed, " Don't you see that 
animal there." I looked, but saw nothing ; still he affirm- 
ed that he saw a dreadful-looking animal looking at us, 
and ready to make a spring. He began to feel for his pis- 
tols, but I told him not to fire there ; but he persisted in 
pointing to the animal, although I am persuaded he saw 
nothing, only by the force of his imagination. I had some 
doubts about telling this story, lest people would not be- 
lieve me ; but a friend has suggested to me that such 
things are not uncommon, when the imagination is strong- 
ly excited. The reader may see confirmation of this fact, 
by turning to a note at the end of this pamphlet. 



LEWIS CLARKE. 53 

In travelling through the rain and mud this afternoonj 
we suffered beyond all power of description. Sometimes 
we found ourselves just ready to stand fast asleep in the 
middle of the road. Our feet were blistered all over. 
When Cyrus would get almost discouraged, I urged him 
on, saying we were walking for freedom now. Yes, he 
would say, "Freedom is good, Lewis, but this is a hard, 
h-a-r-d way to get it." This he would say half asleep. 
We were so weak before night, that we several times fell 
upon our knees in the road. We had crackers with us, 
but we had no appetite to eat — fears were behind us, hope 
before — and we were driven and drawn as hard as ever men 
were. Our limbs and joints were so stiff, that if we took 
a step to the right hand or left, it seemed as though it would 
shake us to pieces. It was a dark, weary day to us both. 

At length I succeeded in getting the consent of Cyrus 
to go to a house for the night. We found a plain farmer's 
family. The good man was all taken up in talking about 
the camp-meeting held that day about three miles from 
his house. He only asked us where we were from, 
and we told him our home was in Ohio. He said the 
young men had behaved unaccountably bad at the camp- 
meeting, and they had but little comfort of it. They 
mocked the preachers, and disturbed the meeting badly. 

We escaped suspicion more readily, as I have no doubt, 
from the supposition, on the part of many, that we were 
going to the camp-meeting. Next morning we called at 
the meeting, as it was on our way, bought up a little extra 
gingerbread against the time of need, and marched for- 
ward for the Ohio. When any one inquired why we left 
the meeting so soon, we had an answer ready : the young 
men behave so bad, we can get no good of tiie meeting. 
5* 



54 Narrative Of* 

By this time we limped badly, and we were sore 
all over. A young lady whom we met, noticing that we 
walked lame, cried out, mocking us, " O my feet, my feet, 
how sore." At about eleven o'clock we reached the 
river, two miles below Ripley. The botjtman was on the 
other side. We called for him. He asked us a few ques- 
tions. This was a last point with us. We tried our best 
to appear unconcerned. T asked questions about the 
boats, as thougli I had been there before ; went to Cyrus 
and said. Sir, I have no change, will you lend me enough 
to pay my toll ? I will pay you before we part. When 
we were fairly landed upon the northern bank, and had 
gone a few steps, Cyrus stopped suddenly on seeing the 
water gush out at the side of the hill. Said he, " Lewis, 
give me that tin cup." What in the world do you want 
of a tin cup now ? we have not time to stop. The cup 
he would have. Then he went up to the spring, dipped 
and drank, and dipped and drank ; then he would look 
round and drink again. " What in the world," said I, 
" are you fooling there for ? " " O," said he, " this is the 
first time I ever had a chance to drink water that ran out 
of the free dirt." Then we went a little further, and he 
sat down on a log. 1 urged him forward. ' " O," said he, 
" I must sit on this free timber a little while." 

A short distance further on, we saw a man who seemed 
to watch us very closely. I asked him which was the best 
way to go, over the hill before us or around it. I did this 
to appear to know something about the location. He 
went off without oHcring any obstacles to our journey. In 
going up the hill, Cyrus would stop and lay down and roll 
over. " What in the world are you about, Cyrus ; don't 
you see Kentucky is over there ? " He still continued to 



LEWIS CLARltE. 55 

roll and kiss the ground ; said it was a game horse that 
could roll clear over; — then he would put face to the 
ground, and roll over and over. " First time," he said, 
'•'■ he ever rolled on//'ee grass." 

After he recovered a little from his sportive mood, we 
went up to the house of a good friend of the slave at Rip- 
ley. We were weary and worn enough ; though ever 
since we left the River, it seemed as though Cyrus was 
young and spry as a colt ; but when we got where we 
could rest, we found ourselves tired. The good lady 
showed us into a good bed-room. Cyrus was skittish. 
He would not go in and lay down. "I am afraid," said 
he, "of old mistress. She is too good — too good — 
can't be so — they want to catch us both." So to pacify 
him, I had to go out into the orchard and rest there. 
When the young men came home, he soon got acquainted, 
and felt sure they were his friends. From this place we 
were sent on by the friends, from place to place, till we 
reached Oberlin, Ohio, — in about five weeks after I left 
there to go for Cyrus. I had encountered a good deal of 
peril; had suffered much from anxiety of feeling; but felt 
richly repaid in seeing another brother free. 

We stopped at Oberlin a few days, and then Cyrus 
started for Canada. He did not feel exactly safe. When 
he reached the Lake, he met a man from Lexington who 
knew him perfectly ; indeed, the very man of whom his 
wife hired her house. This man asked him if he was 
free. He told him yes, he was free, and he was hunting 
for brother Milton, to get him to go back and settle with 
the old man for his freedom. Putnam told him that was 
all right. He asked Cyrus if he should still want that house 
his wife lived in ? " O yes," said Cyrus, " we will notify 



56 Narrative OF 

you when we don't want it any more. You tell them 1 
shall be down there in a few days. I have heard of Mil-^ 
ton, and expect to have him soon to carry back with me." 
Putnam went home, and when he found what a fool Cyrus 
had made of him, he was vexed enough. " A rascal," 
he said, " I could have caught him as well as not." 

Cyrus hastened over to Canada. He did not like that 
country so well as the States, and in a few weeks return- 
ed. He had already sent a letter to his wife, giving her an 
account of his successful escape, and urging her to join 
him as soon as possible. He had the pleasure of meeting 
his wife and her three children by a former husband, and 
they have found a quiet resting place, where, if the rumor 
of oppression reaches them, they do not feel its scourge, 
nor its chains. And there is no doubt entertained by any 
of his friends but he can take care of himself. 

He begins already to appreciate his rights, and to main- 
tain them as a freeman. The following paragraph con- 
cerning him was published in the Liberty Press about one 
year since. 

PROGRESS OF PREEDOM. 

SCENE AT HAMILTON VILLAGE, N. Y. 

Mr. Cyrus Clarke, a brother of tlic well known Milton and 
Lewis Clarke, (all of whom, till withhi a short time since, for 
some twenty-five years were slaves in Kentucky,) mildly, but 
firmly presented his ballot at the town meeting board. Be it 
known that said Cyrus, as well as his brothers, are jchite, with 
only a sprinkling of the African — just enough to make them 
bright, quick, and intelligent, and scarcely observable in the 
color except by the keen and scenting slaveholder. Mr. Clarke 
had all the necessary qualifications of white men to vote. 
Slave. — Gentlemen, here is my ballot, I wish to vote. (Board 



LEWIS CLARKE. 57 

and bystanders, well knowing him, all were aghast — the waters 
were troubled — the slave legions were " up in their might.") 

Judge E. — You can't vote ! Are you not, and have you not 
been a slave ? 

Slave. — I shall not lie to vote. I am and have been a slave, 
so called ; but I wish to vote, and I believe it my right and duty. 

Judge E. — Slaves can't vote. 

Slave. — Will you just show me in your books, constitution, or 
whatever you call them, where it says a slave can't vote ? 

Judge E. — (Pretending to look over the law, &c., well know- 
ing he was " used up.") Well, well, you are a colored man, and 
can't vote without you are worth $250. 
_ Slave. — I am as white as you ; and don't ijou vote 1 

(]\Ir. E. is well known to be very dark ; indeed, as dark or 
darker than Clarke. The current began to set against Mr. E. 
by murmurs, sneers, laughs, and many other demonstrations of 
dislike.) 

Judge E. — Are you not a colored man ? and is not your hair 
curly ? 

Slave. — We are both colored men ; and all w^e differ is, that 
you have not the handsome wavy curl ; you raise GoaVs loool, 
and I come, as you see, a little nearer Saxony. 

At this time the fire and fun was at its height, and was fast 
consuming the judge w'ith public opprobrium. 

Judge E. — I challenge this man's vote, he being a colored 
man, and not worth $250. 

Friends and foes warmly contested what constituted a colored 
man by the New York statute. The board finally came to the 
honorable conclusion that, to be a colored man, he must be at 
least one half blood African. Mr. Clarke, the slave, then voted, 
he being nearly full w^hite. I have the history of this transaction 
from Mr. Clarke, in person. In substance it is as told me, but 
varying more or less from his language used. 

Paris, March 12, 1844. J. Thompson. 



58 NARRATIVE OF 

Martha, the wife of Cyrus, had a long story of the wrath 
of the slaveholders, because he ran away. Monday morn- 
ing she went down in great distress to the overseer to in- 
quire for her husband. She, of course, was in great anx- 
iety about him, Mr. Logan threatened her severely, but 
she, having a little mixture of the Indian, Saxon and African 
blood, was quite too keen for them. She succeeded in so 
far lulling their suspicions as to make her escape, and was 
very fortunate in her journey to her husband. 

Soon after the escape of Cyrus, the Goths and Vandals 
of Kentucky made an irruption into Ohio, going about like 
Satan, seeking whom they might devour. Their special 
object of attack, however, was brotiier Milton. In August 
1842, Milton and myself went up to Madison, Lake county, 
Ohio, to spend a few days. Milton went in a private con- 
veyance with a widow lady named Cole, and her daughter. 
I went in the stage. Mrs. Cole and daughter spent their 
time at Dr. Merriam's. Milton and myself were the guests 
of a Mr. Winchester. We went to meeting with the fam- 
ily on the Sabbath, and in the evening gave some account 
of our sufferings while in bondage. Postlewaite and Mc- 
Gowan, two pirates from Kentucky, were in the neighbor- 
hood at this time, waiting like beasts of prey to leap upon 
their victim. 

Monday morning, my brother and myself, with two or 
three of Mr. Winchester's family, rode up to Dr. Merriam's 
to see the sick daughter of Mrs. Cole. Milton sat a few 
moments in the carriage, and tlie sick daughter of Mrs. 
Cole and a child of Dr. Merriam came out and wanted a 
ride. lie had driven only a mile or two, when a close car- 
riage met him, and turning directly across the road, several 
persons leaped out and stopped his horse. He had no 



LEWIS CLARKE. 59 

suspicion who they were, and asked what they wanted. If 
they wanted money, he had but half a dollar, he told them, 
and they were welcome to that. They replied, " We do not 
want your money, but you." Four men were now around 
him, and one of them ordered him to get out of the bug- 
gy — "Have you we will, dead or alive." 

As he jumped from the carriage, and struck the ground, 
they all leaped upon him, bent his head down to the ground, 
and bound him with a rope. The horse, which he left 
turned out of the road, upset ihe carriage, and tipped out 
the little girls ; the sick one never recovered from the 
shock she received. Milton appealed to them to take care 
of the children, who were screaming in a frightful manner. 
The only reply was, that if they did not hold their tongues, 
they would cut their d d throats. 

After Milton was bound, he was carried to Centreville, 
before a magistrate called Page. The agents of Mr. Lo- 
gan of Kentucky, had power of attorney to seize and bring 
home, wherever found, one Milton Clarke, the property of 
the said Logan. These man-hunters were provided with 
papers, by which they could identify him, and had also 
recommendations from some of the leading men in Ken- 
tucky. They employed a miserable toad-eater of a law- 
yer, who calls himself Robert Harper. This less than 
man was ready to betray innocent blood for less than thirty 
pieces of silver. The examination was continued before 
the magistrate for several hours. The result was, that 
Milton was delivered over to those whose tender mercies 
are cruel. Meanwhile, the friends of the slave had not 
been idle. They had procured two writs, one from Lake 
county, to arrest Postlewaite & Co. as kidnappers, another 
from Ashtabula county, to take the body of Milton Clarke. 



60 NARRATIVE OF 

The road that lead from the place of trial was between the 
two counties. Great numbers were by this time gathered 
together. They so managed to throw obstructions in the 
way of the carriage, that it could make only a zigzag course 
until both writs were served, Milton was released and taken 
into x'\shtabula county and permitted to go free, the kid- 
nappers in great wrath were taken in an opposite direction, 
and after a while they were permitted to return empty 
handed to Kentucky. 

We remained but a short time after this in Ohio. I 
spent a few days in New York ; found there a great many 
warm friends, and in the autumn of 1843 I came to old 
Massacliusetts. feince that time I have been engaged a 
large part of the time in telling the story of what I have 
felt and seen of slavery. 

I have generally found large audiences, and a great de- 
sire to hear about slavery. 1 have been in all the New- 
England States except Connecticut. Have held, I suppose, 
more tlian five hundred meetings in different places, some- 
times two or three in a place. These meetings have been 
kindly noticed by many of the papers of all parties and 
sects. Others have been very bitter and unjust in their 
remarks, and tried to throw every possible obstacle in my 
way. A large majority of ministers have been willing to 
give notice of my meetings, and many of them have at- 
tended them. I find that most ministers say they are abo- 
litionists, but truth compels me to add, that in talking with 
them, I find many are more zealous to apologize for the 
slave-holders, than they are to take any active measures to 
do away slavery. 

Since coming to the free States, I have been struck with 
great surprise at the quiet and peaceable manner in which 



LEWIS CLARKE. 61 

families live. I had no conception that women could live 
without quarreling, till I came into the free States. 

After I had been in Ohio a short time, and had not seen 
nor heard any scolding or quarreling in the families where 
I was, I did not know how to account for it. I told Mil- 
ton, one day, what a faculty these women have of keeping 
all their bad feelings to themselves. I have not seen them 
quarrel with their husbands, nor with the girls, or children, 
since I have been here. " O," said Milton, " these women 
are not like our women in Kentucky ; they don't fight at 
ail." I told him I doubted that ; I guess they do it some- 
where — in the kitchen, or down cellar. " It can't be," 
said I, *' that a woman can live, and not scold or quarrel." 
Milton laughed, and told me to watch them, and see if I 
could catch them at it. I have kept my eyes and ears 
open from that day to this, and I have not found the place 
where the women get mad and rave like they do in Ken- 
tucky yet. If they do it here, they are uncommon sly ; 
but I have about concluded that they are altogether differ- 
ent here from what they are in the slave States. I reckon 
slavery must work upon their minds and dispositions, and 
make them ugly. 

It has been a matter of great wonder to me also, to see 
all the children, rich and poor, going to school. Every 
few miles I see a school-house here ; I did not know what 
it meant when I saw these houses, when I first came to 
Ohio. In Kentucky, if you should feed your horse only 
when you come to a school-house, he would starve to death. 

I never had heard a church bell only at Lexington, in 
my life. When I saw steeples and meeting houses so 
thick, it seemed like I had got into another world. No- 
thing seems more wonderful to me now, than the different 
6 



62 NARRATIVE OF 

way they keep the Sabbath there, and here. In the 
country, in summer, there the people gather in groups 
around the meeting house, built of logs, or around in the 
groves where they often meet ; one company, and perhaps 
the minister with them, are talking about the price of 
niggers, pork, and corn ; another group are playing cards ; 
others are swapping horses, or horse-racing ; all in sight of 
the meeting-house or place of worship. After a while the 
minister tells them it is time to begin. They stop playing 
and talking for awhile. If they call him right smart, they 
hear him out ; if he is " no account," they turn to their 
cards and horses, and finish their devotion in this manner. 

The slaveholders are continually telling how poor the 
white people are in the free States, and how much they 
suffer from poverty — no masters to look out for them. 
When, therefore, I came into Ohio, and found nearly 
every family living in more real comfort than almost any 
glaveholder, you may easily see I did not know what to 
make of it. I see how it is now — every man in the free 
States works ; and as they work for themselves, they do 
twice as much as they would do for another. 

In fact, my wonder at the contrast between the slave 
and the free States has not ceased yet. The more I see 
here, the more 1 know slavery curses the masters as well 
as the slave. It curses the soil, the houses, the churches, 
the schools, the burying-grounds, the flocks and the herds ; 
it curses man and beast, male and female, old and young. 
It curses the child in the cradle, and heaps curses upon 
upon the old man as he lies in his grave. Let all the 
people, then, of the civilized world get up upon Mount 
Ebal, and curse it with a long and bitter curse, and with a 
loud voice, till it withers and dies ; till the year of Jubilee 



LEWIS CLARKE. 63 

dawns upon the South, till the sun of a Free Day sends 
a beam of light and joy into every cabin. 

I wish here sincerely to recognize the hand of a kind 
Providence in leading me from that terrible house of bon- 
dage, for raising me up friends in a land of strangers, and 
for leading me, as I hope, to a saving knowledge of the 
truth as it is in Christ. A slave cannot be sure that he 
will always enjoy his religion in peace. Some of them are 
beaten for acts of devotion. I can never express to God 
all the gratitude which I owe him for the many favors I 
now enjoy. I try to live in love with all men. Nothing 
would delight me more, than to take the worst slaveholder 
by the hand, even Mrs. Banton, and freely forgive her, if 
I thought she had repented of her sins. While she, or 
any other man or woman is trampling down the image of 
God, and abusing the life out of the poor slave, I cannot 
believe they are Christians, or that they ought to be allow- 
ed the Christian name for one moment. I testify against 
them now, as having none of the spirit of Christ. There 
will be a cloud of swift witnesses against them at the day 
of judgment. The testimony of the slave M'ill be heard 
then. He has no voice at the tribunals of earthly justice, 
but he will one day be heard ; and then such revelations 
will be made, as will fully justify the opinion which I have 
been compelled to form of slaveholders. They are a Seed 
of evil-doers, — corrupt are they — they have done abom- 
inable works. 



APPENDIX. 



A SKETCH OF THE CLARKE FAMILY. 

My mother was called a very handsome woman. She 
was very much esteemed by all who knew her ; — the slaves 
looked up to her for advice. She died, much lamented, 
of the cholera, in the year 1833. I was not at home, and 
had not even the melancholy pleasure of following her to 
her grave. 

1. The name of the oldest member of the family was 
Archy. He never enjoyed very good health, but was a 
man of great ingenuity, and very much beloved by all his 
associates, colored and white. Through his own exertions, 
and the kindness of C. M. Clay and one or two other 
friends, he procured his freedom. He lived to repay Mr. 
Clay and others the money advanced for him, but not long 
enough to enjoy for many years the freedom for which 
he had struggled so hard. He paid six hundred dollars 
for himself. He died about seven years since, leaving a 
wife and four or five children in bondage — the inherit- 
ance of the widow and poor orphans is, labor without 

WAGES wrongs WITH NO REDRESS SEPARATION FROM 

EACH OTHER FOR LIFE, and HO being to hear their com- 
6* 



66 APPENDIX. 

plaint, but that God who is the widow's God and Judge. 
" Shall I not be avenged on such a nation as this ? " 

2. Sister Christiana was next to Archy in age. She 
was first married to a free colored man. By him she had 
several children. Her master did not like this connection, 
and her husband was driven away, and told never to be 
seen there again. The name of her master is Oliver An- 
derson — he is a leading man in the Presbyterian Church, 
and is considered one of the best among slaveholders. 
Mr. Anderson married Polly Campbell, at the time I was 
given to Mrs. Betsy Banton. I believe she and Mre. Ban- 
ton have not spoken together since they divided the slaves 
at the death of their father. They are the only two sis- 
ters now living of the Campbell family. 

3. Dennis is the third member of our family. He is a 
free man in Kentucky, and is doing a very good business 
there. He was assisted by a Mr. Wm. L. Stevenson, and 
also by his sister, in getting his freedom. He never had 
any knowledge of our intention of running away, nor did 
he assist us in any manner whatever. 

4. Alexander is the fourth child of my mother. He is 
the slave of a Dr. Richardson ; has with him a very easy 
time ; lives as well as a man can and be a slave ; has no 
intention of running away. He lives very much like a 
second-hand gentleman, and I do not know as he would 
leave Kentucky on any condition. 

5. My mother lost her fifth child soon after it was 
born. 

6. Delia came next. Hers was a most bitter and tragi- 
cal history. She was so unfortunate as to be uncommonly 
handsome, and when arrived at woman's estate, was con- 
sidered a great prize for the guilty passions of the slave- 



THE CLARKE FAMILY. 67 

holders. She was at this time the property of Joseph 
Logan, who had married one of the daughters of Mr. 
Campbell. On the death of his wife, he proposed to make 
a mistress of poor Delia. By the advice of her mother, 
she rejected every such proposal. Her mother urged her 
to die, rather than give herself up to him. 

For her refusal, she was repeatedly and most cruelly 
whipped. One day, while beating her in a most terrible 
manner, my mother went out, (she was at this time the 
property of this same Logan.) and entreated him not to 
kill her child. The brute turned round and knocked her 
down, and beat out several of her teeth. Milton was 
standing by, and when he saw this, he ran to the wood- 
house and got an axe, and was coming to cut this monster 
down. Mother was up, and met him just in lime to keep 
him back ; if he had attempted it, of course Logan would 
have killed him in a moment. 

Logan never succeeded in his infernal purposes. Vexed 
and disappointed, he determined on revenge. Sister was 
sold to Warren Orford, a slave-dealer, carried down to 
New Orleans, and put upon the auction block. The bid- 
ding went on rapidly, till it was up to a thousand dollars ; 
there seemed to be some hesitation then. She had been 
decked out in rich clothing, like a victim for the sacrifice. 
The auctioneer at this point took out his recommendations 
— "She is a member of the Baptist Church, in good 
standing, pious and exemplary, and warranted never to 
have had connection with any man." 

The bidding was suddenly brisk, and she was knocked 
off at sixteen hundred dollars. Fortunately, God had pro- 
vided for her a humane master. She went immediately 
into the hands of a kind-hearted Frenchman, who emanci- 
pated her, and made her his lawful wife. 



68 APPENDIX. 

In a few years her husband died, and left her a hand- 
some property. She only visited Kentucky once after this, 
when she assisted Dennis in getting his freedom. She 
intended to go on, and, if possible, get the whole family 
free, as fast as she could. But death cut short all her pur- 
poses of kindness and sisterly affection. She is remem- 
bered by the whole family with a most melancholy and 
tender interest. She left no children, and the estate came 
properly to the brother who is free in Kentucky. But he 
has made very little exertion to get it, and probably would 
not be successful if he should.* 

7. To No. 7, I, Lewis Clarke, respond, and of me you 
have heard enough already. 

8. Milton comes next, and he is speaking for himself. 
He is almost constantly engaged in giving lectures upon 
the subject of slavery ; has more calls usually than he can 
attend to. 

9. Manda, the ninth child, died when she was about fif- 
teen or sixteen years of age. She suffered a good deal 
from Joseph Logan's second wife. 

10. Cyrus is the youngest of the family, and lives at 
Hamilton, New York. 

* She left a writing' saying she wished Milton to take her property, 
and use it for the family. lie went down to New Orleans to get it, but 
being a slave, he was told there he could not get the property. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 69 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

The following questions are often asked me, when I 
meet the people in public, and I have thought it would be 
well to put down the answers here. 

How many holidays in a year do the slaves in Ken- 
tucky have ? They usually have six days at Christmas, 
and two or three others in the course of the year. Pub- 
lic opinion generally seems to require this much of slave- 
holders ; a few give more, some less, some none, not a day 
nor an hour. 

How do slaves spend the Sabbath? Every way the 
master pleases. There are certain kinds of work which 
are respectable for Sabbath-day. Slaves are often sent 
out to salt the cattle, collect and count the pigs and sheep, 
mend fences, drive the stock from one pasture to another. 
Breaking young horses and mules to send them to market, 
yoking young oxen and training them, is proper Sabbath 
work. Piling and burning brush on the back part of the 
lot, grubbing brier patches that are out of the way, and 
where they will not be seen. Sometimes corn must be 
shelled in the corn-crib ; hemp is baled in the hemp-house. 
The still-house must be attended on the Sabbath. In 
these and various other such like employments, the more 
avaricious slaveholders keep their slaves busy a good part 
of every Sabbath. It is a great day for visiting and eat- 
ing, and the house servants often have more to do on that 
than on any other day. 

What if strangers come along and see you at work ? 



to APPENDIX. 

We must quit shelling corn, and go to play with the cobs, 
or else we must be clearing land on our own account. 
We must cover up master's sins as much as possible, and 
take it all to ourselves. It is hardly fair ; for he ought 
rather to account for our sins, than we for his. 

Why did you not learn to read ? I did not dare to 
learn. I attempted to spell some words when a child. 
One of the children of Mrs. Banton went in and told her 
that she heard Lewis spelling. Mrs. B. jumped up as 
though she had been shot. " Let me ever know you to 
spell another word, I'll take your heart right out of you." 
I had a strong desire to learn. But it would not do to 
have slaves learn to read and write. They could read the 
guide-boards. They could write passes for each other. 
They cannot leave the plantation on the Sabbath without 
a written pass. 

What proportion of slaves attend church on the Sab- 
bath ? In the country not more than one in ten on an 
average. 

How many slaves have you ever known that could 
read ? I never saw more than three or four that could 
properly read at all. I never saw but one that could 
write. 

What do slaves know about the Bible ? They generally 
believe there is somewhere a real Bible, that came from 
God ; but they frequently say the Bible now used is mas- 
ter's Bible, most tiiat they hear from it being, " Servants, 
obey your masters." 

Are families often separated? How many such cases 
have you personally known? I never knew a whole fam- 
ily to live together, till all were grown up, in my life. 
There is almost always, in every family, some one or more 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 71 

keen and bright, or else sullen and stubborn slave, whose 
influence they are afraid of on the rest of the family, and 
such an one must take a walking ticket to the South. 

There are other causes of separation. The death of a 
large owner is the occasion usually of many families being 
broken up. Bankruptcy is another cause of separation, 
and the hard-heartedness of a majority of slaveholders 
another and a more fruitful cause than either or all the 
rest. Generally there is but little more scruple about sep- 
arating families than there is with a man who keeps sheep 
in selling off" the lambs in the fall. On one plantation 
where I lived, there was an old slave named Paris. He was 
from fifty to sixty years old, and a very honest and appa- 
rently a pious slave. A slave-trader came along one day, 
gathering hands for the South. The old master ordered the 
waiter or coachman to take Paris into the back room, pluck 
out all his grey hairs, rub his face with a greasy towel, and 
then had him brought forward and sold for a young man. 
His wife consented to go with him, upon a promise from 
the trader that they should be sold together, with their 
youngest child, which she carried in her arms. They left 
two behind them, who were only from four to six or eight 
years of age. The speculator collected his drove, started 
for the market, and before he left the State he sold that 
infant child to pay one of his tavern bills, and took the 
balance in cash. This was the news which came back to 
us, and was never disputed. 

I saw one slave mother, named Lucy, with seven chil- 
dren, put up by an administrator for sale. At first the 
mother and three small children were put up together. 
The purchasers objected : one says, I want the woman and 
the babe, but not the other children ; another says, I want 



72 APPENDIX 

that little girl ; and another, I want the boy. Well, says 
the Administrator, I must let you have them to the best 
advantage. So the children were taken away ; the mother 
and infant were first sold, then child after child — the 
mother looking on in perfect agony ; and as one child after 
another came down from the auction block, they would 
run, and cling weeping to her clothes. The poor mother 
stood, till nature gave way ; she fainted and fell, with her 
child in her arms. The only sympathy she received from 
most of the hard-hearted monsters who had riven her 
heart-strings asunder was, " She is a d — d deceitful bitch ; 
I wish she was mine, I would teach her better than to cut 
up such shines as that here." When she came to, she 
moaned wofuUy, and prayed that she might die, to be re- 
lieved from her sufferings. 

I knew another slave named Nathan, who had a slave 
woman for a wife. She was killed by hard usage. Nathan 
then declared he would never have another slave wife. 
He selected a free woman for a companion. His master 
opposed it violently. But Nathan persevered in his 
choice, and in consequence was sold to go down South. 
He returned once to see his wife, and she soon after died 
of grief and disappointment. On his return South, he 
leaped from the boat, and attempted to swim ashore ; his 
master, on board the boat, took a gun and deliberately 
shot him, and he drifted down tiie current of the river. 

On this subject of separation of families, I must plant 
one more rose in the garland that I have already tied 
upon the brow of the sweet Mrs. Banton. The reader 
cannot have forgotten her ; and in the delectable business 
of tearing families asunder she of course would have a 
hand. A slave by the name of Susan was taken by Mrs. 



Q U E S T I O N S A N D A N S VV E R S . 73 

Banton on mortgage. She had been well treated where 
she was brought up, had a husband, and they were very 
happy together. Susan mourned in bitterness over her 
separation, and pined away under tlie cruel hand of Mrs. 
Banton. At length she ran away, and hid herself in the 
neighborhood of her husband. When this came to the 
knowledge of Mrs. B., she charged her husband to go for 
" Suke," and never let her see his face unless she was 
with him. '• No, said she, if you are offered a double 
price, don't you take it, I want my satisfaction out of 
her, and then you may sell her as soon as you please." 
Susan was brought back in fetters, and Mr. and Mrs, B. 
both took their satisfaction ; they beat and tortured poor 
Susan till her premature offspring perished, and she almost 
sank beneath their merciless hands, and then they sold her 
to be carried a hundred miles farther away from her hus- 
band. Ah ! slavery is like running the dissecting knife 
around the heart, among all the tender fibres of our being, 
A man by the name of Bill Myers, in Kentucky, went 
to a large number of auctions, and purchased women 
about forty years old, with their youngest children in their 
arms. As they are about to cease bearing at that age, 
they are sold cheap. The children he took and shut up 
in a log pen, and set some old worn-out slave women to 
make broth and feed them. The mothers he gathered in 
a large drove, and carried them South and sold them. 
He was detained there for months longer than he expected, 
and winter coming on, and no proper provision having 
been made for the children, many of them perished with 
cold and hunger, some were frost bitten, and all were ema- 
ciated to skeletons. This was the only attempt that I ever 
knew, for gathering young children together, like a litter 
7 



74 APPENDIX. 

of pigs, to be raised for the market. The success was not 
such as to warrant a repetition on the part of Myers. 

Jockey Billy Barnett had a slave-prison, where he gath- 
ered his droves of husbands, fathers and wives, separated 
from their friends, and he tried to keep up their spirits by 
employing one or two fiddlers to play for them, while they 
danced over and upon the torn-off fibres of their hearts. 
Several women were known to have died in that worse 
than Calcutta Black Hole of grief. They mourned for 
their children, and would not be comforted because they 
were not. 

How are the slave cabins usually built ? They are 
made of small logs, about from ten to twenty feet square. 
The roof is covered with splits, and dirt is thrown in to 
raise the bottom, and then it is beat down hard for a floor. 
The chimneys are made of cut sticks and clay. In the 
corners, or at the sides, there are pens made, filled with 
straw, for sleeping. Very commonly two or three families 
are huddled together in one cabin, and in cold weather 
they sleep together promiscuously, old and young. Some 
few families are indulged in the privilege of having a few 
hens or ducks around them, but this is not very common. 

What amount of food do slaves have in Kentucky ? 
They are not put on allowance ; they generally have 
enough of corn bread, and meat and soup are dealt to 
ihem occasionally. 

What is the clothing of a slave for a year ? For sum- 
mer he has usually a pair of tow and linen pants, and two 
shirts of the same material. He has a pair of shoes, a 
pair of woolsey pants, and a round jacket for winter. 

The account current of a slave with his master stands 
about thus : 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 75 

ICHABOD LlVE-WlTHOL'T-WoRK, iu UCCOUnt With 

John Work-Without-Pay, Cr. 

To one man's work, . . . . $100 00 

Contra Credit. 

By 13 bushels of corn meal at 10 cents, . $1 30 
" 100 lbs. mean bacon and pork at 1^ cents, 1 50 
*' Chickens, pigs, &c., taken without leave, say 1 50 
" 9 yds. of tow and linen, for shirts and pants, 

at 12i, . . 1 12^. 

" 1 pair of shoes, . . . . - 1 50 

" Cloth for jacket and winter pants, 5i yds. at 

2 shillings, . . 1 84 

" Making clothes, . • . . . 1 00 

" 1 Blanket, 1 00 

" 2 Hats or caps, ..... 75 

Sll 51^ 



$88 48* 



The account stands unbalanced thus till the great day of 
reckoning comes. 

Now allow that one half of the slaves are capable of 
labor — that they can earn on an average ,one half the sum 
above named; that would give us ^'50 a year for 
1,500,000 slaves, which would be seventy-five millions- as 
the sum robbed from the slaves every year!! "Wo unto 
him that useth his neighbor's service without wages." Wo 
unto him that buildeth his house by iniquity, " for the 
stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the 
timber shall answer it." " Behold the hire of the laborers 
who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept 
back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of them which have 
reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 



76 APPENDIX. 

Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wan- 
ton ; ye have nourished your hearts as iii a day of 
slaughter." 

Have you ever known a slave mother to kill her own 
children ? There was a slave mother near where I lived, 
who took her child into the cellar and killed it. She did 
it to prevent being separated from her child. Another 
slave mother took her thi'ee children and threw them into 
a well, and then jumped in with them, and they were all 
drowned. Other instances I have frequently heard of. At 
the death of many and many a slave child 1 have seen the 
two feelings struggling in the bosom of a mother — joy 
that it was beyond the reach of the slave monsters, and the 
natural grief of a mother over her child. In the presence 
of the master, grief seems to predominate ; when away 
from them, they rejoice that there is one whom the slave- 
driver will never torment. 

How is it that masters kill their slaves, when they are 
worth so much money ? They do it to gratify passion ; 
this must be done, cost what it may. Some say a man 
will not kill a horse worth a hundred dollars, much less a 
slave worth several hundred dollars. A horse has no such 
ivill of his own, as the slave has — he does not provoke 
the man as a slave docs. The master knows there is con- 
trivance with the slave to outwit him — the horse has no 
such contrivance. This conflict of the two wills is what 
makes the master so much more passionate with his slave 
than with a horse. A slaveholder must be master on the 
plantation, or he knows the example would destroy all 
authority. 

What do they do with old slaves who are past labor? 
Contrive all ways to keep them at work till the last hour 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 77 

of life. Make them shell corn and pack tobacco. They 
hunt and drive them as long as there is any life in them. 
Sometimes they turn them out to do the best they can, or 
die. One man, on moving to Missouri, sold an old slave 
for one dollar, to a man not worth a cent. The old slave 
was turned out to do the best he could ; he fought with 
age and starvation awhile, but was soon found, one morn- 
ing, starved to death, out of doors, and half eaten up by 
animals. I have known several cases where slaves were 
left to starve to death in old age. Generally they sell 
them South and let them die there ; send them, I mean, 
before they get very old. 

What makes them wash slaves in salt and water after 
they whip them ? For two reasons ; one is to make them 
smart, and another to prevent mortification in the lace- 
rated flesh. I have seen men and women both washed 
after they had been cruelly beaten. / have done it with 
my own hands. It was the hardest work I ever did. 
The flesh would crawl and creep and quiver under my 
hands. This slave's name was Tom. He had not started 
his team Sunday morning early enough. The neighbors 
saw that Mr. Banton had work done on the Sabbath. 
Dalton, the overseer, attempted to whip him. Tom 
knocked him down and trod on him, and then ran away. 
The patrols caught him, and he Avas whipped three hun- 
dred lashes. Such a back I never saw — such work I 
pray that I may never do again. 

Do not slaves often say that they love their masters very 
much ? Say so ? yes, certainly. And this loving master 
and mistress is the hardest work that slaves have to do. 
When any stranger is present we have to love them very 
much. When master is sick we are in great trouble. 
7* 



78 APPENDIX. 

Every night the slaves gather around the house, and send 
up one or two to see how master does. They creep up to 
the bed, and with a very soft voice, inquire, " How is 
dear massa ? O massa, how we want to hear vour voice 
out in the field again." Well, this is what they say up in 
the sick room. They come down to their anxious com- 
panions. "How is the old nmn ? " "Will he die?" 
Yes ! yes ! he sure to go this time ; he never whip the 
slave no more. " Are you sure?" "Will he die ? " O 
yes ! surely gone for it now. Then they all look glad, 
and go to the cabin with a merry heart. 

Two slaves were sent out to dig a grave for old master. 
They dug it very deep. As I passed by I asked Jess and 
Bob what in the world they dug it so deep for. It was 
down six or seven feet. I told them there would be a 
fuss' about it, and they had better fill it up some. Jess 
said it suited him exactly. Bob said he would not fill it 
up; he wanted to get the old man as near home as possi- 
ble. When we got a stone to put on his grave, we 
hauled the largest we could find, so as to fasten him down 
as strong as possible. 

Who are the patrols? They are men appointed by the 
county courts to look after all slaves without a pass. They 
have almost unlimited power over the slaves. They are 
the sons of run-down families. The greatest scoundrel is 
always captain of the band of patrols ; they are the 
ofTscouring of all things, the refuse, the fag end, the ears 
and tails of slavery ; tiie scales and fins of fish, the tooth 
and tongues of serpents; they are the very fools cap of 
baboons, the echo of parrots, the wallet and satchel of 
pole-cats, the scum of stagnant pools, the exuvial, the worn 
out skins of slaveholders ; thev dress in their old clothes ; 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 79 

they are emphatically the servants of servants, and slaves 
of the devil ; they are the meanest and lowest and worst 
of all creation. Like starved wharf rats, they are out 
nights, creeping into slave cabins, to see if they have an 
old bone there ; drive out husbands from their own beds, 
and then take their places. They get up all sorts of pre- 
tences, false as their lying tongues can make them, and 
then whip the slaves and carry a gory lash to the master 
for a piece of bread. 

The rascals run me with their dogs six miles, one night, 
and I was never nearer dead than when I reached home 
that night. I only escaped being half torn to pieces by 
the dogs, by turning their attention to some calves tha;t 
were in the road. The dogs are so trained that they will 
seize a man as quick as any thing else. The dogs come 
very near being as mean as their masters. 

Cyrus often suflered very much from these wretches. 
He was hired with a man named Baird. This man was 
reputed to be very good to his slaves. The patrols, there- 
fore, had a special spite toward his slaves. They would 
seek for an opportunity to abuse them. Mr. Baird would 
generally give his slaves a pass to go to the neighbors, once 
or twice a week if requested. He had been very good to 
Cyrus in this respect, and therefore Cyrus was unwilling 
to ask too often. Once he went out without his pass. 
The patrols found him and some other slaves on another 
plantation without any passes. The other slaves belonged 
to a plantation where they were often whipped ; so they 
gave them a moderate punishment and sent them home. 
Cyrus, they said, they would take to the woods, and have 
a regular whipping spree. It was a cold winter night, the 
moon shining brightly. When they had got into the woods, 



80 APPENDIX. 

they ordered him to take off his outside coat, then his 
jacket ; then he said he had a new vest on ; he did not 
want that whipped all to {)eices. There were seven men 
standing in a ring around him. He looked for an opening 
and started at full speed. They took after him, but he 
was too spry for them. He came to the cabin where I 
slept, and I lent him a hat and a pair of shoes. He was 
very much excited : said they were all around him, but 
they could'nt whip him. He went over to Mr. Baird, and 
the patrols had got there before him, and had brought his 
clothes and told their story. It was now eight or nine 
o'clock in the evening. Mr. Baird, when a young man, had 
lived on the plantation of Mr. Logan, and had been treated 
very kindly by mother. He remembered this kindness to 
her children. When Cyrus came in, Mr, Baird took his 
clothes and handed them to him and told him, " Well, boy, 
they came pretty near catching you." Cyrus put on his 
clothes, went into the room where the patrols were, and 
said, " Good evening, gentlemen. Why, I did not think 
the patrols would be out to-night, — I was thinking of 
going over to Mr. Reed's ; if I had I should have gone 
without a pass ; they would have caught me sure enough. 
Mr. Baird, I wish you would be good enough to give me a 
pass, and then I won't be afraid of these fellows." Mr. 
Baird enjoyed the fun right well, and sat down and wrote 
him a pass, and the patrols started and had to find the 
money for their peach brandy some where else. 

There were several other times when he had but a hair- 
breadth escape for his skin. He was generally a little too 
shrewd for them. After he liad outwitted them several 
times, they ofl'ered a premium to any one who would whip 
him. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 81 

How do slaves get information of what is doing in the 
free States? In diflerent ways. They get something 
from the waiters that come out into the free States and 
then return with their masters. Persons from the free 
States tell them many things ; the fiee blacks get some- 
thing ; and slaves learn most of all from hearing their 
masters talk. 

Don't slaves that run away return sometimes? Yes. 
There vi-as one returned from Canada very sorry he had 
run away. His master was delighted with him — thought 
he had him sure for life, and made much of him. He was 
sent round to tell how bad Canada was. He had a ser- 
mon for the public — the ear of the masters, and another for 
the slaves. How many he enlightened about the best way 
to get there I don't know. His master at last was so sure 
of him, that he let him take his wife and children and 
go over to Ohio to a camp-meeting, all fitted out in good 
style, with horse and wagon. They never stopped to hear 
any preaching, till they heard the waves of the lakes Hit 
up their cheerful voices between them and the oppressor. 
George then wrote an affectionate note to his master, in- 
viting him to take tea with him in Canada, beyond the 
waters, the barrier of freedom. Whether the old people 
ever went up to Canada to see their afTectionate child- 
ren, I have not learned. I have heard of several instances 
very much like the above. 

If the slaves were set free, would they cut the throats of 
their masters ? They are far more likely to kill them if 
they don't set them free. Nothing but the hope of eman- 
cipaiion, and the fear they might not succeed, keeps them 
from rising to assert their rights. They are restrained, also, 
from affection for the children of those who so cruelly 



82 APPENDIX. 

oppress them. If none would suffer but the roasters 
themselves, the slaves would make many more efforts for 
freedom. And sooner or later, unless the slaves are given 
free, they will take freedom at all hazards. There are 
multitudes that chafe under the yoke sorely enough. 
They could run away themselves, but they would hate to 
leave their families. 

Did the slaves in Kentucky hear of the emancipation in 
the West Indies ? They did, in a very short tim.e after it 
took place. It was the occasion of great joy. They 
expected they would be free next. This event has done 
much to keep up the hopes of the slave to the present 
hour. 

What do slaves think of the piety of their masters ? 
They have very little confidence in them about any thing. 
As a specimen of their feelings on this subject, I will tell 
an anecdote of a slave. 

A slave named George, was the property of a man of 
high standing in the church. The old gentleman was 
taken sick, and the doctor told him he would die. He 
called George, and told him if he would wait upon him 
attentively, and do every thing for him possible, he would 
remember him in his will : he would do something hand- 
some for him. 

George was very much excited to know what it might 
be : hoped it might be in the heart of his master to give 
him his freedom. At last the will was made. George 
was still more excited. The master noticed it, and asked 
what the matter was. " Massa, you promise do some- 
thing for me in your will. Poor niggar ! what Massa done 
for George?" "O George, don't be concerned; I have 
done a very handsome thing for you, such as any slave 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 83 

would be proud to have done for him." This did not 
satisfy George. He was still very eager to know what it 
was. At length the master saw it necessary to tell George, 
to keep him quiet and make him attend to his duty. 
" Well, George, I have made provision that when you die, 
you shall have a good coffin, and be put into the same 
vault with nje. Will not that satisfy you, George ?"' 
" Well, Massa, one way I am satisfied, and one way I am 
not." " What, what," said the old master, " what is the 
matter with that?" " Why," says George, " I like to have 
good coffin when I die." " Well, don't you like to be in 
the same vault with me and other rich masters ?" "Why 
yes, master, one way I like it, and one way I don't." 
" Well, what don't you like ?" " Why I afraid, Massa, 
when de debbil come take you body, he make mistake, 
and get mine." 

The slaves uniformly prefer to be buried at the greatest 
possible distance away from master. They are supersti- 
tious, and fear that the slave-driver having whipped so 
much when alive, will, somehow, be beating them when 
dead. I was actually as much afraid of my old master 
when dead as I was when he was alive. I often dreamed 
of him too, after he was dead, and thought he had actually 
come back again to torment me more. 

Do you think it was right for you to run away and not 
pay any thing for yourself? I would be willing to pay, if 
I knew who to pay it to. But when I think it over, I 
can't find any body that has any better right to me than 
myself. I can't pay father and mother, for they are dead. 
I don't owe Mrs. Banton any thing for bringing me up the 
way she did. I worked five or six years, and earned more 
than one hundred dollars a year for Mr. K. and family, 



84 APPENDIX. 

and received about a dozen dollars a year in clothing. 
Who do J owe, then, in Kentucky ? If I catch one of the 
administrators on here, 1 intend to sue him for wages and 
interest for six years' hard work. There will be a small 
bill of damages for abuse ; old Kentucky is not rich 
enough to pay me for that. 

Soon after you came into Ohio, did you let yourself to 
work? I did. Was there any difference in your feelings 
while laboring there, and as a slave in Kentucky ? 

I made a bargain to work for a man in Ohio. I took a 
job of digging a cellar. Before I began, the people told me 
he was bad pay ; they would not do it for him. I told 
them I had agreed to do it. bo at it I went, worked hard, 
and got it ofl^ as soon as possible, although I did not expect 
to get a cent for it ; and yet I worked more readily and 
with a better mind than I ever did in Kentucky. If I 
worked for nothing then, I knew I had made my own bar- 
gain, and working with that thought, made it easier than 
any day's work I ever did for a master in Kentucky. That 
thought was worth more than any pay I ever got in 
slavery. However, I was more fortunate than many 
thought I should be ; through the exertions of a good 
friend I got my pay soon after the work was done. 

Why do slaves dread so bad to go to the South — to 
Mississippi or Louisiana? Because they know that slaves 
are driven very hard there, and worked to death in a few 
years. 

Are those who have good masters afraid of being sold 
South ? They all suffer very much for fear masters cir- 
cumstances will change, and that he may be compelled to 
sell them to the '• soul ukivers," a name given to the 
dealers by the slaves. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 85 

What is the highest price you ever knew a slave to sell 
for? I have known a man sold for ^1,465. He was a 
waiter man, very intelHgent, very humble, and a good 
house servant, A good blacksmith, as I was told, was 
once sold in Kentucky for ^3,000. I have heard of hand- 
some girls being sold in New Orleans for from ^2,000 to 
^3,000. The common price of females is about from 
^500 to ,^700, when sold for plantation hands, for house 
hands, or for breeders. 

Why is a black slave-driver worse than a white one ? 
He must be very strict and severe, or else he will be 
turned out. The master selects the hardest-hearted and 
most unprincipled slave upon the plantation. The over- 
seers are usually a part of the patrols. Which is the 
worst of the two characters or officers is hard to tell. 

Are the masters afraid of insurrection ? They live in 
constant and great fear upon this subject. The least un- 
usual noise at night alarms them greatly. They cry out, 
•' What is that ? " " Are the boys all in ? " 

What is the worst thing you ever saw in Kentucky ? 
The worst thing I ever saw, was a woman stripped all 
naked, hung up by her hands, and then whipped till the 
blood ran down her back. Sometimes this is done by a 
young master or mistress to an aged mother, or even a 
grandmother. Nothing the slaves abhor as they do this. 

Which is the worst, a master or a mistress? A mistress 
is far worse. She is for ever and ever tormenting. When 
the master whips it is done with ; but a mistress will 
blackguard, scold and teaze, and whip the life out of a 
slave. 

How soon do the children begin to exercise their author- 
ity ? From the very breast of the mother. I have seen a 
8 



86 APPENDIX 

child, before he could talk a word, have a stick put into 
his hand, and he was permitted to whip a slave in order to 
quiet him. And from the time they are born till they die, 
they live by whipping and abusing the slave. 

Do you suffer from cold in Kentucky ? Many people 
think it so warm there that » we are safe on this score. 
They are much mistaken. The weather is far too cold 
for our thin clothing ; and in winter, from rain, sleet and 
snow, to which we are exposed, we suffer very severely. 
Such a thing as a great coat the slave very seldom has. 

What do they raise in Kentucky ? Corn and hemp, 
tobacco, oats, some wheat and rye ; slaves, mules, hogs 
and horses, for the Southern market. 

Do the masters drink a great deal ? They are nearly all 
hard drinkers — many of them drunkards ; and you must 
not exclude mistress from the honor of drinking, as she is 
often drunk too. 

Are you not afraid they will send up and catch you, 
and carry you back to Kentucky ? They may make the 
attempt ; but I made up my mind, when I left slavery, 
never to go back there and continue alive. I fancy I 
should be a load for one or two of them to carry back, 
any how. Besides, they well know that they could not 
take me out of any State this side of Pennsylvania. 
There are very few in New England that would sell them- 
selves to help a slaveholder; and if tiiey should, they 
would have to run their country — they would be hooted 
at as they walked the streets. 

Now, in conclusion, I just want to say, that all the 
abuses which I have here related, are necessary, if slavery 
must continue to exist. It is impossible to cut off these 
abuses and keep slavery alive. Now if you do not ap- 



WHAT IS SLAVERY' 87 

prove of these horrid sufferings, I entreat you to lift up 
your voice and your hand against the whole system, and, 
with one united effort, overturn the abominations of cen- 
turies, and restore scattered famihes to each other ; pour 
light upon millions of dark minds, and make a thousand, 
yea, ten times ten thousand abodes of wretchedness and 
wo, to hail and bless you as angels of mercy sent for their 
deliverance. 



Before closing this pamphlet, 1 want to put in a few pieces, 
which give such an accurate description of Slavery, that I can 
testify to the truth of every word of it. Also, a few pieces of 
poetry, that have been read to me, and with which I have been 
particularly interested, 

WHAT IS SLAVERY ? 

John G. Whittier answers, — 

The slave laws of the South tell us, that it is the con- 
version of men into articles of property. The transform- 
ation of sentient mortals into " chattels personal.^' The 
principle of a reciprocity of benefits, which, to some extent, 
characterizes all other relations, does not exist in that of 
master and slave. The master holds the plough which 
turns the soil of his plantation, the horse which draws it, 
and the slave who guides it, by one and the same tenure. 
The profit of the master is the great end of the slave's 
existence. For this end he is fed, clothed, and prescribed 
for in sickness. He learns nothing, acquires nothing for 
himself. He cannot use his own body for his own benefit. 



Wo APPENDIX. 

His very personality is destroyed. He is a mere instru- 
ment — a means in the hands of another for the accom- 
pHshment of an end in which his own interests are not re- 
garded — a machine moved, not by his own will, but 
another's. In him the lawful distinction between a per- 
son and a thing is annihilated. He is thrust down from 
the place which God and Nature assigned him, from the 
equal companionship of rational intelligences — a man 
herded with beasts — an immortal nature classed with the 
wares of the merchant ! 

The relations of parent and child, master and apprentice, 
government and subject, are based upon the principle of 
benevolence, reciprocal benefits, and the wants of human 
society — relations which sacredly respect the rights and 
legacies which God has given to all his rational creatures. 
But SLAVERY exists only by annihilating or monopolizing 
these rights and legacies. In every other modification of 
society, man's personal ownership remains secure. He may 
be oppressed — deprived of privileges — loaded with bur- 
dens — hemmed about with legal disabilities — his liber- 
ties restrained. But, through all, the right to his own body 
and soul remains inviolate. He retains his inherent, orig- 
inal possession of himself. Even crime cannot forfeit it 
— for that law which destroys his personality makes void 
its own claims upon him as a moral agent, and the power 
to punish ceases with the accountability of the criminal. 
He may suffer and die under the penalties of the law, but 
he suffers as a man, he perishes as a man, and not as a 
thing. To the last moments of his existence the rights 
of a moral agent are his; they go with him to the grave ; 
they constitute the ground of his accountability at the bar 
of Infinite Justice — rights fixed, eternal, inseparable — at- 



WHAT IS SLAVERY? 89 

tributes of all rational intelligences in time and eternity — 
the same in essence, and differing in degree only, with those 
of the highest moral Being — of God himself. 

Slavery alone lays its grasp upon the right of Personal 
Ownership — that foundation right, the removal of which 
uncreates the man ; a right which God himself could nut 
take away, without absolving the being thus deprived of all 
moral accountability ; and so far as that being is concerned, 
making sin and holiness, crime and virtue, words without 
significance, and the promises and sanctions of Revelation, 
dreams. Hence, the crowning horror of slavery, that which 
lifts it above all other iniquities, is not that it usurps the 
prerogatives of Deity, but that it attempts that which even 
He, who has said " all souls are mine," cannot do, without 
breaking up the foundations of his moral government. — 
Slavery is, in fact, a struggle with the Almighty for domin- 
ion over his rational creatures. It is leagued with the Pow- 
ers of Darkness, in wresting man from his Maker. It is 
Blasphemy, lifting brazen brow and violent hand to Heaven, 
attempting a reversal of God's laws. Man claiming the 
right to uncreate his brother ; to undo that last and most 
glorious work, which God himself pronounced good, amidst 
the rejoicing of the hosts of Heaven ! Man arrogating to 
himself the right to change, for his own selfish purposes, 
the beautiful order of created existences — to pluck the 
crown of an immortal nature, scarce lower than that of an- 
gels, from the brow of his brother — to erase the God-like 
image and superscription stamped upon him by the hand 
of his Creator, and to write on the despoiled and dese- 
crated tablet, '• A CHATTEL PERSONAL !" 

This, then, is SLAVERY. Nature, with her thousand 
voices, cries out against it. Against it. Divine Revelation 
8* 



90 APPENDIX. 

launches its thunders. The voice of God condemns it, in 
the deep places of the human heart. The woes and wrongs 
unutterable which attend this dreadful violation of natural 
justice — the stripes — the tortures — the sunderings of 
kindred — the desolation of human affections — the un- 
chastity and lust — the toil uncompensated — the abro- 
gated marriage — the legalized heathenism — the burial of 
the mind — are but the mere incidentals of the first grand 
outrage — that seizure of the entire man — nerve, sinew, 
and spirit, which robs him of his body, and God of his 
soul. These are but the natural results, and outward de- 
monstrations of slavery — the crystalizations from the 
Chattel Principle. 

It is against this system, in its active operation upon 
three millions of our countrymen, that the Liberty party 
is, for the present, directing all its efforts. With such an 
object, well may we be " men of one idea." Nor do we 
neglect " other great interests," for all are colored and con- 
trolled by slavery, and the removal of this disastrous influ- 
ence would most effectually benefit them. 

Political action is the result and immediate object of 
moral suasion on this subject. Action — action — is the 
spirit's means of progress, its sole test of rectitude, its only 
source of happiness. And should not decided action fol- 
low our deep convictions of the wrong of slavery ? Shall 
we denounce the slaveholders of the States, while we re- 
tain our slavery in the District of Columbia ? Shall we 
pray that the God of the oppressed will turn the hearts of 
"the rulers" in South Carolina, while we, the rulers of 
the District, refuse to open the prisons, and break up the 
slave-markets on its ten miles square ? God keep us from 
such hypocrisy ! Every body, now, professes to be opposed 



WHAT IS SLAVERY? 91 

to slavery. The leaders of the two great political parties 
are grievously concerned, lest the purity of the anti-slavery 
enterprise will suffer in its connection with politics. In 
the midst of grossest pro-slavery action, they are full of 
anti-s\a.very sentiment. They love the .cause, but, on the 
whole, think it too good for this world. They would keep 
it sublimated, aloft, out of vulgar reach or use altogether, 
intangible as Magellan's clouds. Every body will join us 
in denouncing slavery, in the abstract, — not a faithless 
priest nor politician will oppose us ; — abandon action, and 
forsooth we can have an abolition millenium — the wolf 
shall lie down with the lamb — while SLAVERY IN 
PRACTICE clanks, in derision, its three millions of un- 
broken chains. The Clays, the Van Burens, the Ather- 
tons, are all " abolitionists in the abstract." They have no 
fear of the harmless spectre of an abstract idea. They 
dread it only when it puts on the flesh and sinews of a 
practical reality, and lifts its right arm in the strength 
which God giveth to do, as well as theorize. 

As honest men, then, we must needs act; let us do so as 
becomes men engaged in a great and solemn cause. Not by 
processions and idle parades, and spasmodic enthusiasms, 
by shallow tricks, and shows, and artifices, can a cause 
like ours be carried onward. Leave these to parties con- 
tending for office, as the " spoils of victory." We need 
no disguises, nor false pretences, nor subterfuges ; enough 
for us to present before our fellow countrymen the holy 
truths of freedom, in their unadorned and native beauty. 
Dark as the present may seem, let us remember with hearty 
confidence that Truth and Right are destined to triumph. 
Let us blot out the word discouragement from the anti- 
slavery vocabulary. Let the enemies of freedom be dis- 



92 APPENDIX. 

couraged ; let the advocates of oppression despair ; but let 
those who grapple with wrong and falsehood, in the name 
of God, and in the power of His truth, take courage. 
Slavery must die. The Lord hath spoken it. The vials 
of His hot displeasure, like those which chastised the na- 
tions in the Apocalyptic vision, are smoking, even now, 
above its " habitations of cruelty." It can no longer be 
borne with by Heaven. Universal humanity cries out against 
it. Let us work, then, to hasten its downfall, doing what- 
soever our hands find to do, " with all our might." 

Truly your friend, 

John G. Whittier. 



Hear what Cassius M. Clay says of slavery. 

Cassius M. Clay, (nephew of Henry Clay,) has come 
out in a series of articles in the Lexington (Ky.) Intelli- 
gencer, denouncing slavery in unqualified terms — proving 
that it is the worst evil the sun ever shone on — and con- 
cluded one of his articles as follows : 

" Though no Athenian trumpeter may hurry through 
the assembled and terrified people in bitter anguish, cry- 
ing aloud, ' Will no one speak for his country ?', yet from 
mute and unresisting suffering and down-trodden inno- 
cence there comes up a language, no less powerful, to 
awaken whatever of sympathy and manly indignation may 
be treasured up in the bosoms nurtured on Kentucky 
soil, — rich in associations every way calculated to foster 
all that is just, honest, and true, — without which, chivalry 
is a crime, and honor but an empty sound ! For them, 
once more, then, I denounce those who would, by legisla- 



SLAVERY AND CHRISTIANITY. 93 

tion or otherwise, fix the bond of perpetual slavery and the 
slave trade upon my native State. In the name of those 
who in all ages have been entitled to the first care and 
protection of men, I denounce it. In the name of them 
who, in '76, like those who sent back from Thermopylae 
the sublime message, 'Go tell Lacedemon that we died 
here in obedience to her laws,' illustrated by their blood 
the glorious doctrines which they taught, I denounce it. 
In the name of Christianity, against whose every lovely 
and soul-stirring sentiment it for ever wars, I denounce it. 
In the name of an advancing civilization, which, for more 
than a century, has with steady pace moved on, leaving 
the Cimmerian regions of slavery and the slave trade far 
in the irrevocable and melancholy past, I denounce it. In 
the name of the first great law, which at Creation's birth 
was impressed upon man, self-defence, unchangeable and 
immortal as the image in which he was fashioned ; and in 
His name, whose likeness man was deemed not unworthy 
to wear, / denounce slavery and the slave trade for ever" 



See how they make their ministers, and what kind of 
ministers they make. 

SLAVERY AND CHRISTIANITY. 

Sale of human beings for the benefit of Theological 
education. — The following notice of a public sale is taken 
from the Savannah Republican of March 3d, 1845. After 
describing the plantation which was to be sold, the notice 
adds : — 

" Also, at the same time and place, the following negro 



94 APPENDIX. 

slaves, to wit : Charles, Peggy, Antonetl, Davy, Septem- 
ber, Maria, Jenney, and Isaac — levied on as the property 
of Henry T. Hall, to satisfy a mortgage Ji. fa. issued out of 
Mc Intosh Superior Court, in favor of the Board of Direc- 
tors of the Theological Seminary of the synod of South 
Carolina and Georgia, vs. said Henry T. Hall. Condi- 
tions, cash. C. O'Neal, Deputy Sheriff, M. C." 

We do not quote this as anything new or strange, but 
only as illustrating a thing of common occurrence. — Bos- 
ton Recorder. 

This synod, we suppose, is Presbyterian, with which 
churches in the free States are in good fellowship relation. 
Take another case from Zion's Advocate. 

Ministers, Hounds, and Runaway Negroes. 

The Home Missionary of the Alabama Association, writ- 
ing to the Alabama Baptist, on the subject of ministerial 
support, attributes the unwillingness of the people to sup- 
port their preachers, in part, to the teaching of the anti- 
missionary ministers. And he represents one of these 
riding through the country, with a train of about twenty 
hounds, and with a brace of pistols, and a Bowie knife 
projecting out of his pocket, showing a handle which would 
make a bludgeon, as his informant told him, " large enough 
to kill the d — 1 ; and thus fully armed and equipped, he 
makes his excursions, hunting runaway negroes !!" 

The Missionary of the Alabama Association goes on to 
say : — " While it may be right and proper that some one 
should keep such dogs, and follow such a vocation, we 
think it does not fitly become the ambassadors of Christ. 
Let the churches, then, awake to the subject of Ministerial 
support.^' 



SLAVERY. 95 

That is, so that their ministers may not be obUged to 
resort to negro hunting for a hving. Are not these 
Synods and Associations, " dear brethren ?" Now we ask 
particular consideration to the following, which, if erro- 
neous, we will thank any one to show to be so. 

" The highest kind of theft, is that which steals men ; 
and Slavery is nothing less than this. The church which 
steals them, or holds slaves, which is the same thing, is a 
thieving church. If that church is in loving fellowship 
with others, they together form a Brotherhood of 
Thieves." 



Of the power of professors of religion over Slavery, Dr. 
Smith of Virginia thus testifies : — 

'< I told him, (Dr. Bond,) that Southern Methodists con- 
curred in making the laws, (perpetuating slavery,) volun- 
tarily did so, as far as the system itself was concerned, and 
that in Virginia, particularly, they could not avail them- 
selves of the benefit of his apology, because so strong is the 
non-slaveholding interest, that at any time when the mem- 
bership of the church shall unite their votes with the non- 
slaveholders in western Virginia particularly, they are com- 
petent to overturn the whole system. But that we did 
not do so, because we considered it our solemn. Christian 
duty to sanction and sustain the system under its present 
unavoidable circumstances." 



A Hard Case. — Last week a case was brought up be- 
fore the Orphans' Court of this county, which must shock 
the sensibilities of every right-minded man. In 1839 a 
law vi'as passed to prohibit free blacks from coming into 



96 APPENDIX. 

this State from other States, whether to settle or not, 
under the penally of twenty dollars for the first offence. 
If the negro be unable to pay the fine, he is to be com- 
mitted to jail, and sold as a slave for life. The twenty 
dollars goes to the informer. In case the negro remains 
five days in this State after his first conviction, or returns 
into it after his departure, he is liable to pay a fine of five 
hundred dollars, one half to the informer ; and on his ina- 
bility to pay to be sold for life. After stating the above, 
we feel it necessary to assure our readers, that this is the 
forty-fifth year of the nineteenth century, and that this 
law exists in America, and not in any of the darkened 
countries of Europe ! 

Last week, under this law, a negro was brought before 
the Orphans' Court by a late corporation constable, for 
having come into this State, being a free negro. The 
statement of the poor old fellow — for he was old and verg- 
ing to the limit of his years, with little of the strength of 
manhood left him — was, that he was removing his family 
from Virginia into Pennsylvania, having been set free for 
that purpose, and that he was now on his way through 
Maryland, simply passing through the State, with no 
thought of harm, no knowledge of the ferocious toils of 
the law which hung around him. He was sentenced to 
pay the fine, and the informer, having consented to remit 
one half, Mr. Bromett, one of our new Whig magistrates, 
generously and kindly undertook to raise the money by 
collection among the citizens of the town, to release the 
unfortunate old man. He was of course successful in his 
efforts, and had the exquisite enjoyment of winning bless- 
ings from a sorrowful heart, and sending the poor gray 
headed negro on his way rejoicing. — Frederick (Md.) 
Kxaminer, April 16. 



SLAVEHOLDER'S PARODY. 97 



SLAVEHOLDER'S PARODY. 

Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell, 
How pious priests whip Jack and Nell, 
And women buy, and children sell, 
And preach all sinnei's down to hell. 
And sing of heavenly union. 

They'll bleat and ba, dona like goats. 
Gorge down black sheep, and strain at motes, 
Array their backs m fine black coats, 
And seize their negroes by their throats. 
And choke for heavenly union. 

They '11 church you, if you sip a dram. 
And damn you if you steal a lamb. 
Yet, rob old Tony, Doll and Sam, 
Of human rights, and bread and ham ; 
Kidnapper'^s heavenly union. 

They '11 talk of heaven and Christ's reward, 

And bind his image with a cord. 

And scold and swing the lash abhorred. 

And sell their brother in the Lord, 

To liand-cvffcd heavenly union. 

They '11 read and sing a sacred song, 
And make a prayer both loud and long. 
And teach the right, and do the wrong. 
Hailing the brother, sister throng. 
With words of heavenly union. 

We wonder how such saints can sing. 
Or praise the Lord upon the wing. 
Who roar and scold, and whip and stinj. 
9 



98 APPENDIX. 

And to their slaves and mammon cling. 
In guilty conscience's union. 

They '11 raise tobacco, corn and rye, 
And drive and thieve, and cheat and lie, 
And lay up treasures in the sky. 
By making switch and cow-skin fly, 
In hope of heavenly union. 

They '11 crack old Tony on the skull, 
And preach and roa.r like Bashan bull, 
Or braying ass, of mischief full. 
Then seize old Jacob by the wool, 
And pull for heavenly union. 

A roaring, ranting, sleek man-thief, 
Who lived on mutton, veal and beef, 
And never would afford relief. 
To needy sable sons of grief. 
Was hig with heavenly union. 

Love not the world, the preacher said, 
And winked his eye and shook his head, — 
He seized on Tom, and Dick, and Ned, 
Cut short their meat, and clothes, and bread, 
Yet still loved heavenly union. 

Another preacher, whining spoke 

Of one whose heart for sinners broke, — 

He tied old Nanny to an oak. 

And drew the blood at everj^- stroke. 

And prayed for heavenly union. 

Two others ope 'd their iron jaws, 
And waved their children-stealing paws, 
There sat their children in gew-gaws, — 
By stinting negroes' backs and maws. 
They keep up lieavenly union. 



PARODY. 99 

All good from Jack another takes, 

And entertains their flirts and rakes, 

Who dress as sleek as glossy snakes, 

And cram their mouths with sweetened cakes, 

And this goes down for union. 



I AM MONARCH OF NOUGHT I SURVEY 

A PAKODY. 

I am monarch of nought I survey. 
My wrongs there are none to dispute ; 

My master conveys me away, 
His whims or caprices to suit. 

slaveiy, where are the charms 

That " patriarchs " have seen in thy face ? 

1 dwell in the midst of alarms. 

And serve in a horrible place. 

I am out of humanity's reach. 

And must finish my life with a groan ; 
Never hear the sweet music of speech 

That tells me my body's my own. 
Society, friendship and love, 

Divinely bestowed upon some. 
Are blessings I never can prove, 

If slavery 's my portion to come. 

Religion ! what treasures untold 

Reside in that heavenly word ! 
More precious than silver or gold, 

Or all that this earth can afford. 



loo APPENDIX. 

But I am excluded the light 

That leads to this heavenly grace ; 

The Bible is closed to my sight, 
ks beauties I never can trace. 

Ye winds, that have made me your sport, 

Convey to this sorrowful land, 
Some cordial, endearing report, 

Of freedom from tyranny's hand. 
My friends, do they not often send, 

A wish or a thought after me ? 
O, tell me I yet have a friend, 

A. friend I am anxious to see. 

How fleet is a glance of the mind ! 

Compared with the speed of its flight. 
The tempest itself lags behind, 

x\nd the swift-winged arrows of light. 
When I think of Victoria's domain, 

In a moment I seem to be thei'e. 
But the fear of being taken again. 

Soon hurries me back to despair. 

The wood-fowl has gone to her nest, 

The beast has lain down in his lair; 
To me, there 's no season of rest. 

Though I to my quarter repair. 
If mercy, O Lord, is in store. 

For those who in slavery pine. 
Grant mc, when life's troubles arc o'er, 

A place in thy kingdom divine. 



OUR COUNTRYMEN IN CHAINS. 101 



OUR COUNTRYMEN IN CHAINS. 

Our fellow countrymen in chains, 

Slaves in a land of light and law ! 
Slaves crouching on the very plains 

Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war ! 
A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood — 

A wail where Camden's martyrs fell — 
By every shrine of patriot blood, 

From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well. 

By storied hill and hallowed grot. 

By mossy wood and marshy glen, 
Whence rang of old the rifle-shot, 

And hurrying shout of Marion's men ! 
The groan of breaking hearts is there — 

The falling lash — the fetter's clank! 
Slaves — SLAVES are breathing in that air, 

Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank I 

What, ho ! — our countrymen in chains ! 

The whip on woman's shrinking flesh ! 
Our soil yet reddening with the stains 

Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh 
What ! mothers from their children riven ! 

What ! God's own image bought and sold ! 
Americans to market driven. 

And bartered as the brute, for gold ! 



Speak ! shall their agony of prayer 
Come thrilling to our hearts in vain ? 

To us, whose fathers scorned to bear 
The paltry menace of a chain ? 
9* 



102 APPENDIX. 

To us, whose boast is loud and long 

Of holy Liberty and Light — 
Say, shall these writhing slaves of wrong. 

Plead vainly for their plundered Right ' 

Shall every flap of England's flag 

Proclaim that all around are free. 
From " farthest Ind " to each blue crag 

That beetles o'er the Western Sea ? 
And shall we scoff" at Europe's kings, 

When Freedom's fire is dim with us, 
And round our country's altar clings 

The damning shade of Slaveiy's curse ? 

Just God ! and shall we calmly rest. 

The Christian's scorn — the Heathen's mirth 
Content to live the lingering jest 

And by-word of a mocking Earth ? 
Shall our own glorious land retain 

That curse which Europe scorns to bear ? 
Shall our own brethren drag the chain 

Which not even Russia's menials wear : 

Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, 

And leave no traces where it stood : 
No longer let its idol drink 

His daily cup of human blood : 
But rear another altar there. 

To Truth, and Love, and Mercy given, 
And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, 

Shall call an answer down from Heaven ! 



EXTRACT. 103 



EXTRACT 

FROM CAMPBELL'S "PLEASURES OF HOPE. " 

And say, supernal Powers ! who deeply scan 
Heaven's dark decrees, unfathomed yet by man. 
When shall the woi'ld call down, to cleanse her shame, 
That embryo spirit, yet without a name, — 
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands 
Shall burst the Lyblan's adamantine bands } 
Who, sternly marking on his native soil 
The blood, the tears, the anguish and the toil, 
Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see 
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free ! 

Yet, yet, degraded men ! th' expected day 
That breaks your bitter cup, is far away ; 
Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed, 
And holy men give Scripture for the deed ; 
Scourged and debased, no Briton stoops to save 
A wretch, a coward ; yes, because a slave ! 

Eternal Nature ! when thy giant hand 
Had heaved the floods, and fixed the trembling land, 
Whep life sprung starting at thy plastic call, 
Endless'her forms, and man the lord of all! 
Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee, 
To wear eternal chains and bow the knee } 
Was man ordained the slave of man to toil. 
Yoked with the brutes, and fettered to the soil ; 
Weighed in a tyrant's balance with his gold } 
No ! — Nature stamped us in a heavenly mould ! 
She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge. 
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge I 



104 APPENDIX. 

No homeless Lybian, on the stormy deep, 
To call upon his country's name, and weep ! 

Lo ! once in triumph, on his boundless plain. 
The quivered chief of Congo loved to reign ; 
With fires proportioned to his native sky, 
Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye. 
Scoured with wild feet his sun-illumined zone, 
The spear, the lion, and the woods, his own ! 
Or led the combat, bold without a plan, 
An artless savage, but a fearless man ! 

The plunderer came ! — alas ! no glory smiles 
For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles ; 
For ever fall'n ! no son of nature now. 
With freedom chartered on his manly brow ! 
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away, 
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day, 
Starts, with a bursting heart, for evermore 
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore ! 

The shrill horn blew ; at that alarum knell 
His guardian angel took a last farewell ! 
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resigned 
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind ! 
Poor fettered man ! I hear thee whispering low 
Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Wo! 
Friendless thy heart ; and canst thou harbor there 
A wish but death — a passion but despair? 

The widowed Indian, when her lord expires, 
Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires ! 
So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh ! 
So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty ! 



FROM THE SOUTH. 105 



FKOMTHE SOUTH -READ! READ! 

The following extract is from a long letter written me 
from a lady living in East Florida, who is an extensive 
slaveholder, her husband owning two hundred or three 
hundred slaves. The letter is confidential, and of vast 
importance ; more especially to protestants. The original 
will be in my possession. At any time, when it may be 
wanted to prove the authenticity, you can have it. 

W. H. HoucK. 

" Slavery, I think, is one of the most abominable insti- 
tutions that the wickedness of man ever invented. I can 
see no justice in one mortal appropriating the labor of 
another to his sole use and benefit ; slavery demoralizes 
the whites as well as the blacks. But where there is so 
much hard work, there is not so much time for commit- 
ting iniquity among the blacks, as among the whites. It 
demoralizes the latter, by fostering the passions, causing 
laziness, bad temper, giving an incentive for the love of 
dictation, and other base things, which would not be very 
modest to mention here. I could mention several gentle- 
men whom I know, who have black wives, unmarried as 
well as married. Children are raised here with the idea 
that negroes are put here for the express purpose of con- 
tributing to the enjoyment and indolence of themselves. 
They think it almost a sin to get a horse or a drink of 
water, if there is a negro in hearing of the voice. It makes 
no difference how much fatigued the poor creatures are, 
they must start at the beck. 

<' Slavery blunts every sympathetic feeling of the human 
heart. From their infancy children are accustomed to see 



106 APPENDIX. 

slaves tied up and cut to pieces. You know that a com- 
mon whipping is from thirty to forty lashes on the skin, and 
it is no uncommon thing for them to get two hundred or 
three hundred lashes. The blood generally starting after 
the first half dozen lashes. Many persons instead of whip- 
ping, beat them unmercifully. 
" There is now an old woman, (here the name is given.) 

under the charge of the marshal at N ,(the name of 

the place is given,) who, for whipping a woman, or rather 
causing her to be whipped to death, was before the grand 
jury last court. The citizens, however, are not willing to 
sit as jurors on her case, as she is so aged. They do not. 
will not condemn her. Her children are solicitous that 
she may be sent to the penitentiary, in order that they 
may get the property ; and had it not been for this, her 
cause would not, probably, have been noticed. It seems 
the old mistress had been or was ill, and the said negress 
was employed to brush the flies and keep them off the pa- 
tient; by some means the negress hit the mistress in the 
face with the brush. The following was her punish- 
ment : — She was taken out before the door, her arms ex- 
tended to two trees, being stretched to their utmost, and 
naked. Two negro women commenced whipping her at 
eight o'clock in the morning, and with short intervals, 
whipped until two in the afternoon. She begged her mis- 
tress to allow her one drop of water to quench her thirst, 
and time to pray, as she had been very wicked, and should 
go to hell unless she could pray ; but all to no^ effect. She 
was not allowed to call upon God. She was untied at 
two o'clock, a dead woman. Her murderer will no doubt 
go unpunished. You must have known this woman, I 
should have said devil. It was old Mrs. S . There 



NOTE. 107 

are some other horrible circumstances connected with this 
case which I forbear mentioning, for the want of room. 

"As it regards treating negroes well it cannot be done. 
The law establishes a standard for their treatment. In- 
stance as a part, they get one peck of corn per week, and 
one or two suits of clothing annually ; at the same time 
have to work hard every day, including Sabbaths very 
often. There is no preaching in Florida for the benefit of 
the slaves, unless they attend with their masters, and these 
are domestics, if any. Then they cannot go inside the 
church ! But let me forbear ; I am almost alarmed for 
what I have already written. If I come North this fall, I 
will give you my views more fully. Remember, this letter 
is confidential. Yours, &c., G. S." 

True Wesleyan.] 



NOTE. 

The following facts, in confirmation of the story told on page 
b2, are from Prof. Upham's treatise on Disordered Mental 
Action. 

Under the influence of a morbid sensibility, the mere concep- 
tions of the mind, if they happen to be particularly vivid, may at 
times impart such an increased activity to the whole or a part of 
the retina as to give existence to disordered or illusory sights. 
Disordered action may exist in connection with more than one 
sense at the same time. Such seems to have been the fact in 
the case of that remarkable visionary, Blake, the English painter. 
" Did you ever see a fairy's funeral, madam ? " he once said to 
a lady who happened to sit by him in company. " Never, sir ! " 
was the answer. " I have," said Blake, " but not before last 
night." He then proceeded to state as follows : — "I was walk- 



i08 APPENDIX. 

ing alone in my garden. There was great stillness among the 
branches and flowers, and more than common sweetness in the 
air. I heard a low and pleasant sound, and knew not whence it 
came. At last I saw the broad leaf of a flower move, and under- 
neath I saw a procession of creatures of the size and color of 
"reen and gray grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a rose- 
leaf, which they buried with songs, and then disappeared." It 
would seem from this statement, and from other things which 
are related of him, that this remarkable person was the subject of 
disordered auditory as well as visual sensations. 

The same principle explains also what is related of Napoleon. 
Previously to his Eussian expedition, he was frequently discover- 
ed half reclined on a sofa, where he remained several hours, 
plunged in profound meditation. Sometimes he started up con- 
vulsively, and with an ejaculation. Fancying he heard his 
name, he would exclaim, " Who calls me .' " These are the 
sounds, susceptible of being heard at any time in the desert air, 
which started Robinson Crusoe from his sleep when there was 
no one in his solitary island but himself, — 

" The airy tongues that syllable men's names, 
On shores, in desert sands, and wildernesses." 



THE END 



-^•^.r' Pr ri 






